Vengeful Acts
by livinglife
Summary: His power had grown over the years. Now he was ready at last. The man, his exfriend, who had stolen the only girl he truly loved was finally going to die. Their son, so similar to him, would also fall. He would finally kill them. Victory was his at last.
1. Prologue

_**New story time again! This chapter is just a short prologue, because it was hard to write this first part. You'll see why when you start reading.**_

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_Hatred comes from the heart, contempt from the head, and neither feeling is quite within our control._

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I glared at the picture of the three of us all standing together. We had all been so happy back then. My two best friends and I had had a great relationship. Until the accident that is. I ended up in the hospital while they were on the outside; finishing school, living their lives, falling in love…

Anger filled me as I continued staring at the picture. His stupid grin seemed to say, _"Hey, I stole the only woman you ever loved. We're still best friends, right?" _How could she ever have fallen in love with him? He caused the accident that ruined my life, yet she seemed to forget that and married him anyways.

We haven't seen each other for years. He still sends letters, hoping that our old friendship could be salvaged, but each one only made my hatred for him burn stronger. Apparently they went into the ghost hunting business, acting as if my accident never happened. It was like being slapped in the face. Had they forgotten all of the pain that I went through? All of the suffering that the paranormal had caused me?

The worst part was that they even had their own family, a teenage boy and girl. It just wasn't fair that he had everything that I ever wanted, and I was alone. I had been watching them carefully for quite some time, and I was shocked when it turned out that their son had powers like mine. Perhaps I could bring him over to my side and convince him how much his father deserved to die.

It had taken me a long time to decide that I was going to kill my former friend. My loathing for him simmered over many years, and I was finally sick of watching him go through life without regretting causing the accident that ruined my life and stealing the one person I loved. Now he was going to pay for what he had done.

I looked at the picture into her amethyst eyes, searching for some sort of reason as to why she betrayed me. Her arms were around both of us, like she couldn't decide who she liked better. It could have been me who she had married. It _should_ have been me.

Very slowly I tore as much of him out of the picture as I could, trying not to rip any of her at all. His half of the photo was now in my palm, and I crushed it before disintegrating it with an ectobeam.

I changed into my ghost form and glanced at my reflection in the mirror. My eyes, which had once been bright green, were now red because of the deep seated obsession within me. My ears were pointed, and my skin had a blue tint to it, and I had changed the costume I used to wear. Would either of them recognize me? Probably not until it was too late. I laughed and flew away from my home.

History had repeated itself. Just like the what had happened to the first halfa, Vlad Plasmius, my best friend had destroyed my life. Tucker Foley would die tonight, and Sam would finally be mine.


	2. First And Last

**_Now we will go into Danny's life before and after the accident to see what made him so much like Vlad. Also I needed something more to write about _**

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_Nothing is certain except the past._

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**Twenty Years Ago**

Someone tapped my shoulder, causing me to jump a foot in the air. I was extremely nervous today, and I was really hoping that there wouldn't be a ghost attack. Today was the first day of my senior year of high school, and I had finally made a very important decision. I would ask Sam to be my girlfriend.

Why I didn't ask her sooner I didn't know. Valerie and I had been going out again for a while during tenth grade, until she found out my secret identity, and then she didn't trust me anymore. I had spent most of junior year trying to win her back, but she refused to put the past behind us.

Throughout it all Sam was always watching from the side, supporting me and never saying anything about my other relationships. Now I realized how much I had hurt her, ignoring her and any feelings she might have had for me. But now I would change that.

"Dude, are you okay?" Tucker, the person who had tapped my shoulder, said. "Why are you so jumpy?"

I had a feeling that Tucker knew I loved Sam all along, and the last thing I wanted was for him to tell me 'I told you so'. "It's nothing Tucker. I'm just a little nervous, you know." He looked like he didn't believe me, but said nothing else. I glanced down at his schedule and mine, and to my disappointment he wasn't in any of my classes. We didn't even have the same lunch period. It was like the teachers were trying to separate us.

"I think the teachers finally realized that we're bad influences on each other." He said, also noticing the differences in our schedules. Even though we were best friends, I was kind of relieved that he wouldn't be around when I told Sam that I wanted to be her boyfriend. For some reason I felt uncomfortable whenever Tucker was with Sam and I. Almost like he was stealing Sam from me.

At that moment Sam came up. "Hi Sam, are you ready for your first day as a senior?" I said, trying to sound friendly to hide my nervousness. Then I noticed that she had a scowl on her face worse than any I had ever seen. "What's wrong?" She shoved her schedule into my hands.

"My parents paid the guidance counselors to separate me from you." Sam explained. "They said that it was 'in my best interests' and I am seriously considering moving out. How could they do that to us?" I looked down at Sam's schedule and saw that it was different from mine, and then looked at Tucker's.

Every single class was the same.

To my surprise jealousy filled me. Sam's parents thought I was a bad influence, but they seemed to love Tucker. I never should have made him ask Sam to the dance back in ninth grade. Since then her parents decided that they would make a good couple. Well, better than Sam and me.

"I'm going to complain to the principal. I'll protest until she has nightmares about it. This is our last year; we should at least have some classes together!" She grabbed her schedule and stormed off to the office. I sighed. I guess I'd just have to ask her after school.

"Are you sure nothing's wrong Danny?" Tucker said.

'I told you so' or not I decided to tell Tucker. After all, it's not like he would care if Sam and I got together. "Have you ever loved someone but couldn't tell them exactly how you felt?" To my surprise he seemed alarmed, but then his face went back to normal.

"Which girl is it this time?" For some reason it sounded like he knew.

"Sam. I want to ask her to be my girlfriend. Do you think she'll say yes?" I watched his face carefully to see how he would react. The jealousy I had felt when reading the schedules was suddenly on his face. He didn't like Sam, did he? "Tucker? Are you okay?"

He was silent, a rare thing for Tucker to be.

The bell rang and Tucker walked away without saying anything. I didn't have time to worry about it, and went to first period hoping that Sam would be able to change something so that I would get to see her. The first day of school was always boring, since the teachers explained all of the rules we had been told the year before and every year since kindergarten. It was especially dull because Sam and Tucker weren't there for me to talk to.

Lunch was the worst. Valerie seemed to take pity on me and let me sit with her, but she didn't say anything and kept looking at me like I was going to burst into flames. "So… how was your summer?" I said, wanting more than anything to break the tense silence. She looked up in surprise.

"Fine." Then she went back to eating her food very slowly. At least it was better than when Valerie first found out. She always called me a liar and a traitor. I looked down at the cafeteria food and the silence returned just as strongly as ever.

Suddenly a chill went through me and familiar blue smoke came out of my mouth. "Oh no, not now!" I muttered. Valerie heard me and her head shot up.

"What is it, a ghost attack? You can sense that right?" I raised my eyebrow and nodded. "Come on, we have to stop it!" She grabbed my arm and half dragged me out of the cafeteria.

Once we were outside she changed into her black and red suit, and watched as I changed into my ghost form. "What made you so talkative?" I said, not liking the nervous look I was getting from her.

"Look, I still don't trust you, but we have to stop the ghost from hurting innocent people." Her glider appeared and she flew away towards the other side of the school. I flew after her as fast as I could without passing her. My flying speed was much faster than hers.

Suddenly a blast hit me in the back, causing me to fall several feet. I caught myself in midair and turned to face my attacker. It was Plasmius. "Look Vlad, I'm having a hard enough day as it is without you trying to beat me." I blasted him and he was sent backwards more than I was.

Since I had gotten my ghost powers I had become much more powerful than Vlad could ever dream of being. Usually it took me about ten minutes tops to send him away. I had hoped that he would stop trying to attack me since he knew that he couldn't win.

"Oh come now Daniel, this wasn't my idea so don't blame me for it. I know when I've been beaten fair and square." Suddenly I was shot from behind. "That's why I like to cheat."

I gritted my teeth and turned around to face my second attacker. Valerie floated in front of me. "Where did the ghost behind me go? Did you catch him?" Then I noticed the smoking gun in her hand and realized I had been tricked. "It was you?"

Valerie looked past me at Plasmius. "You're Mr. Masters' associate, right?" I didn't turn around to see if he nodded or not. I just kept staring at Valerie, unable to believe it. She looked away from my glare and said, "I'm sorry Danny, I just… really like you as more than a friend, and Mr. Masters told me that if I helped him capture you then he would take away your ghost half. Then we could get back together…"

I stared at her. She still couldn't accept my ghost half and now she had teamed up with Vlad. Of course she didn't realize that he was part ghost too, but she still betrayed me even after she knew that I never hurt anyone. Could this day get any worse?!

"Jack Fenton is here to save the day!" I looked down and saw that my parents had just arrived. The day was now worse. They still didn't know that I was Danny Phantom. Sam and Tucker were also there for some reason. For a moment Vlad, Valerie, and I watched what was going on.

"What are you doing here kids?" My mom said. "And where's Danny? He's always with you two."

"Um, Hey Mr. Fenton, what does that new weapon do?" Sam said, quickly changing the topic.

Dad started explaining excitedly. "I call this the Specter Sleeper. One shot will put a ghost to sleep for the rest of its afterlife." He started getting into how exactly it worked and I turned my attention back to my enemies.

Vlad was already gone. I looked around me and couldn't find him anywhere. He didn't think that my dad's invention actually worked, did he? Oh well, now I could try and talk some sense into Valerie. There was a soft noise like the lid to something coming off, and I turned around to find Valerie holding a Fenton Thermos.

"Please Danny." she said, "Please, if you're human then I won't have to worry about your ghost half being…" she stopped.

I was suddenly very angry with her for not trusting me. "Go ahead, say it. You're afraid of me being evil. You are terrified that someday I'll stop being a hero and betray you like you betrayed me. Fine. I used to believe that you would get over our past and we could get back together, but now I know that that will never happen." Fury overcame me and I blasted the thermos out of Valerie's hands, causing her to scream in surprise.

There was another sound, like a weapon charging up, and I glared down at everyone below me. My dad was trying to aim the gun he was holding at me, but it was pointed about five feet to my right. Then Tucker jumped in. He ran forward and tackled my dad, and then tried to get the gun away from him.

Unfortunately all he managed to do was perfect my dad's aim… and fire the gun.

I created a shield around me, expecting it to bounce off or fade, but as it got closer I realized that the blast was draining my energy, and I couldn't keep the wall up. It was too late to move, and I couldn't turn intangible. The blast hit me.

Very slowly I started to fall from the sky, picking up speed as I fell. Two rings passed over me, transforming me back into Danny Fenton, but I didn't have time to worry about the fact that mom and dad now knew my secret. I was too busy trying not to fall asleep. The ground met me suddenly but I didn't even feel the impact.

I was surrounded by blurry faces. "It was an accident!" I heard Tucker say. All I could think was that it didn't look like one to me, and that I was very, very tired. My eyes closed and if anyone said anything else I didn't hear it. Apparently my dad's invention worked after all.


	3. Future Shock

_**Just as an extra bribe for you all to review, I have the next chapter typed up and will post it depending on how soon I get reviews! This is a fairly short chapter, but the next one isn't.**_

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_I never think of the future. It comes too soon._

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I had to fight to escape the inky blackness that had taken over me. It was like trying to wake up out of a nightmare, except instead of a monster coming towards me there was only the dark trying to trap me forever. Sometimes I would sink down into sleep and be unable to do anything, but now it felt like I was finally winning.

My eyes snapped open and then shut again against the bright light in the room. Everything felt strange as I regained my senses. My body felt out of proportion, like I had been stretched, and I was weak. The bed I was in was hard and uncomfortable, and it seemed like I had been in it a long time.

Very slowly I opened my eyes and stared up at the white ceiling. Where was I? The last thing I remembered was falling from the sky… Mom and Dad! They knew that I was half ghost now, and there was no way I could lie to them about it. Maybe I was in some sort of ghost studying area.

There were curtains around the bed, and I sat up and pulled them back. It was just a hospital, a normal, non ghost related hospital. My parents hadn't freaked out over me being Danny Phantom. I probably broke some bones from my fall, so it made sense that I was here. I stood up to get a better look around the room and realized that I wasn't the only person here.

The old man in the other bed was staring at me. His face was too white, and I thought he was going to pass out. "The doctors said you wouldn't ever wake up. They said that you were a lost cause, and that you were as good as dead. You never even moved the six weeks I've been here, and now you're walking around like nothing ever happened."

I felt my mouth go dry. What had happened to me? The man continued giving me that same shocked look, and I realized I probably should say something. "It's not like I've been out for years right? Is it really all that strange that I woke up now? Maybe you're just exaggerating." He had to be.

He shook his head. "The doctors will tell you what I've already said. I should probably let them know that you're up." Panic filled me as he reached over and pressed the call nurse button. What if he was right? That I had been out for years? I didn't want to hear that from a doctor or anyone else.

I jumped back onto the bed and pulled the curtain around me. Hopefully my ghost powers still worked. The familiar blue light came and I was Danny Phantom again. If my life had been spent asleep in this hospital then there were only two people I wanted to talk to. My parents.

People came into the room and I quickly turned invisible. "What is it now Mr. Lancer?" was all I heard before flying through the ceiling. I could have stayed and let them find me, but then I would have to listen to them repeat everything that the old man had said.

Once I was out of the hospital I stopped and looked around. I was relieved to find out that I had been in Amity Park hospital instead of someplace far away. The cold air and the exhilaration of flying almost distracted me from going home, but as I looked at the city from the sky I noticed several buildings that hadn't existed before the accident. How long had I been asleep?

For a little while I flew around the city in disbelief, half afraid to go back home. Everything was so different. Some of the buildings were similar, but most of them had changed. I went past Sam's mansion and realized that it must have been empty for a long time.

On the way back to my house I got lost twice because all of the familiar places I knew had either been changed, moved, or demolished. Finally I realized that I was on our street and flew as fast as I could to my house.

Only it wasn't my house anymore. It was… a vacant lot. I sank down to the ground and stared at where the Fenton Works sign used to hang. This wasn't real, I had to be dreaming. What had happened to this place? My feet carried me to the center of the empty space. Where were mom and dad? Where was anything?

Most of the floor was missing too. I floated down to where the lab used to be and saw that there was nothing left. The walls and ground were burned black, and the only thing that I recognized was the metal octagon on the wall. Its doors were open but it was off, so instead of the glowing swirling vortex it was just a dark hole.

I fell onto my knees and sat down. The place I had lived for eighteen years was gone, my family was gone, and my life was gone. All that was left was the ruined ghost portal and the black soot. I could have stopped whatever had done this, but I was too busy sleeping. Why hadn't I woken up sooner? What happened?

In most stories rain would start to fall right about now as if nature felt bad for the hero. I listened to the birds chirping and cars going past as sun shown through the hole in the basement ceiling. Maybe I wasn't the hero anymore. I couldn't save my parents.

There was no way to tell how long I stayed there, waiting for someone to tell me it's just a joke, or waiting for someone to wake me up. It could have been minutes, hours, or maybe days. I couldn't feel anything, and I was frozen in the same spot in my ghost form hoping for someone to end the pain.

A hand gently touched my shoulder. I didn't move. "The doctors said that you had vanished from the hospital. I knew that you would come here." Her voice surprised me, but I didn't look at her. Doing that would prove this wasn't a dream. "It was a fire. A normal, non ghost related fire. There's nothing anyone could have done."

She waited for me to talk, but I continued to stare at the dark portal. "I'm sorry that there was no one with you when you woke up. The room was always packed at first. We were all so sure that you would be okay. And you finally are."

"How long was I in that hospital sleeping Jazz?" I stood up and turned to face her. She had tears running down her face. "How much of my life have I spent asleep?"

"Danny…" She paused. "Please, don't talk like that. Now that you're awake you can spend the rest of your life doing whatever you want. We'll go back to the hospital and show them that you're fine, and then we can go to my house and call Sam and Tucker to tell them the good news, and then-"

"How long Jazz?" She bit her lip and looked me in the eyes. I heard something almost like a whisper, but her answer shocked me so much that I forgot it.

"Twelve years. Happy thirtieth birthday."


	4. Evil Realizations

_**Thank you all for reviewing! Here's the next chapter as promised.**_

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_Nothing is more depressing than the conviction that one is not a hero._

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Cold realization spread over me. Twelve years. Enough time for my parents to die and everyone I knew to grow up. My life was destroyed. I didn't finish high school, I didn't go to college, and I never told Sam I loved her- all because dad's invention really worked. It didn't feel like I had been in a coma for so long. It felt like yesterday was the day that the accident happened.

Dark thoughts filled my head and I couldn't get rid of them. What if it wasn't an accident? What if Tucker wanted to get me out of the way? The memory of his face when I had told him that I liked Sam as more than a friend came back to me. He wouldn't do that to me no matter how jealous he was. Would he?

"Come on Danny. Let's go home." Jazz said, breaking me from my thoughts. I just stared at her. She seemed to realize that something was wrong and sighed. "I know it's going to be hard adjusting, but everything's going to be fine, okay? We're still brother and sister and I'll always be there for you." Jazz pulled me over to the flight of stairs that I had missed before.

"How are Sam and Tucker?" I asked. I didn't want the silence and my thoughts to take over again.

Jazz looked like she didn't know how to answer for a second. "They're fine. Danny, could you please change back into your human form? I might get some strange looks from the neighbors if I bring a ghost into my house."

I almost did before I remembered what I was wearing. "You'll have to wait on that Jazz. I'm not exactly uh, dressed."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm wearing a hospital gown." Just another reminder of the twelve year gap. "I'll just turn invisible or something." She laughed- it sounded like she hadn't done that in a long time -and started up the steps. I looked around one last time and my eyes once more were drawn to the broken ghost portal. "Jazz… mom and dad are dead, right?"

She looked down. "Yes. A year and a half after you went into the hospital because of your 'coma'. You would have been in college. There was no way you could have saved them."

I stared at the portal and decided that I wouldn't tell Jazz that I was going to find our parents in the Ghost Zone. They had to be there. People became ghosts because they had unfinished business on earth, right? I was just beginning my twelve years of unconsciousness. They wouldn't leave me like that, especially since it was their invention that put me there.

_But Tucker fired it._

"Jazz," I said, turning around at last. "When I asked you about Sam and Tucker you changed the subject. They're still alive, aren't they?"

"You can call them yourself and ask them as many questions as you want." She smiled, but it looked forced. "They came to the hospital to visit you as much as I did." Jazz continued up the stairs and this time I followed.

The drive to her house seemed to take forever. She kept trying to keep the conversation going, but every time it became silent I couldn't help but wonder why she wouldn't talk about my friends. They hadn't forgotten me, had they?

Then I began to wonder about Sam. I never told her I loved her. What if she had given up on me? What if I could never win her love back now that I was awake? Why couldn't I have gone to sleep for years after I had told Sam that I wanted to be with her?

_Because Tucker didn't want you to._

I closed my eyes and tried to block out everything. Suddenly I heard Jazz gasp and tires squealing. I opened my eyes and looked at her. Her fingers were wrapped tightly around the steering wheel and her face was white. "Danny, don't do that! I thought you were having a relapse!"

"Sorry Jazz, I was just thinking. Besides, you make it sound like I was having a seizure or something. Are you going to do that when I actually do go to sleep?" After I said this I instantly regretted it. Jazz burst into tears.

"You don't know how hard it was for me. I heard about your accident the day after it happened. Mom and dad were hysterical. They couldn't believe that they-"

"Had a half ghost for a son?" I guessed.

"Had hurt you." She continued as if I hadn't said anything. "I came as soon as I got the call from mom. It was so strange at first. You just kept on sleeping. It wasn't even normal sleep though. You never moved, or snored, or did anything. I had to put my hand in front of your mouth to make sure you were even breathing."

"We thought that you would wake up on your own in a day, maybe two, but that didn't happen. Then we tried everything that we could think of. We poured cold water on you, made loud noises, and even put you in ectoplasm to see if we could wake up your ghost half or something. Our parents did tests to see if they could tell how long you would stay unconscious. The tests pointed towards forever."

"Sam and Tucker stayed with us for a long time, a week or more. They didn't want to leave your side in case you woke up. But they had to go back to school. So did you. At first our excuse as to why you were missing was that you were sick, but as more time passed we finally had to tell everyone that you went into a coma because of an accident. We had to send you to the hospital even though we knew that there was nothing they could do for you."

"A few people wanted to know what caused your coma. We told them that we didn't know, and then rumors started spreading. Some people even accused mom and dad of child abuse! I could hear mom crying almost constantly from my old room, and dad became so depressed he stopped eating. He spent all of his time trying to find a way to wake you up. They insisted that I go back to college. 'We ruined Danny's life, don't let us ruin yours.' So I left. Two weeks later they died, and I was all alone for what felt like forever. You're finally back, and I don't think I can handle losing you again."

The car was silent once more. Jazz had stopped crying and stared straight ahead at the road. Everyone had suffered so much, just because Tucker had pulled the trigger. He betrayed me so that he could comfort Sam while I was frozen like a corpse. In the back of my mind I heard his voice repeating over and over, 'It was an accident, an accident'.

I stared out the window, watching blurred scenery fly past and the sky getting darker. Suddenly I noticed a pair of glowing red eyes staring back at me. I almost phased my hand through the window to blast the creep when I realized that it was my reflection.

'Ghosts have different colored eyes depending on their personalities.' My mom had said once. 'Green usually means that they're either not very strong or they don't harm humans. Red means that they're very evil and will stop at nothing to get what they want. Some even enjoy taking lives.'

Jazz didn't notice that anything was wrong. I put my forehead against the glass and waited for my eyes to turn green again. They didn't. Red eyes… like a bad picture. Like Plasmius. I closed my eyes so that I wouldn't have to look at them and so that Jazz wouldn't notice.

Finally we pulled into her driveway. "I'll see you inside." I said, turning invisible and leaving the car through the roof. If I just flew away Jazz would never have to know that I wasn't a hero anymore. That I was an evil ghost. But I couldn't do that to her. I flew through the door and turned visible again.

Jazz walked in and I made sure that I was looking at everything except her face. "Most of my clothes won't fit you, and those that do won't look good on you. Hmm, wait here." She turned around and walked out the door.

I looked around her house for real this time. There were a lot of pictures. Many of them were old ones of me. Several were hanging over the stairs, and I walked up the steps slowly and looked at the pictures. In the first one Sam Tucker and Jazz were at a restaurant. Sam looked so different. She wasn't wearing black anymore. In the next picture Sam and Tucker were holding hands and Jazz seemed to look worried. The third showed them all at a party. Jazz was waving to the camera. Sam and Tucker looked like they were talking, and Sam looked like she was going to die from happiness. Then the fourth…

My eyes burned as beams shot from them and melted the glass. I grabbed the picture off of the wall and glared at it, unable to do anything else. Smoke started to come from the frame as green fire from my hands began to burn it. I dropped it and heard the glass break, but it had already caught on fire. The photo itself burst into flames, and I watched as it curled up and turned black before crumbling into ashes.

The fourth and final picture had been of Tucker and Sam only. Sam was wearing white, Tucker was wearing a tuxedo. With at least a hundred people watching they had been kissing each other in front of an altar…

Jazz walked in. "My neighbor was nice enough to lend me some clothes for you. I told him that you forgot your suitcase and-" She looked up and saw me on the stairs next to the spot where the picture used to hang. "Danny, your eyes, they're-"

"I know. They're red, like blood." She looked scared, but I didn't care. "You should have mentioned that Sam and Tucker were married. Then I wouldn't have wasted time coming here." I walked down the stairs and over to her. "Instead I would have flown to where my ex-best friend is living and strangle him. Then my hands would be the same color as my eyes."

"Stop… please…"

"Because of him I lost twelve years of my life. Then he used the time I was in the hospital and got married to the girl I was in love with! Now that I'm awake I can't even tell Sam I love her because she's married. Till death do they part, and they'll be parting very soon."

"Danny…"

"Everyone believes that good always triumphs over evil. Everyone's wrong Jazz. I hope Tucker enjoyed the years I was gone. He won't enjoy any more."

"I'm sorry." She pulled me into her arms and I could feel her sobbing against my chest. My anger instantly melted away. "I was afraid that you would react like this. You can't blame this on Tucker, it was an accident."

"Jazz… I… I can't stay here. There's something I need to do. I'll leave Tucker and Sam alone, but please don't tell them that I've come back. That would just be harder for me and for them. Maybe I'll tell them later, but I can't now."

She stepped back and nodded to show she understood. "You're still a hero Danny. Never forget all of the people you've saved."

"Thanks Jazz." I hugged her again before flying off into the dark night. At least one of us believed that I wasn't evil.


	5. What Might Have Been

_**This chapter is completely for 2wingo, who pushed this story in a different and in my opinion better direction. They supplied many ideas and made the story more intense and exciting for me and hopefully for you. Thank 2wingo a million times, all of you. Now. Really.**_

_**Oh and please review. Pretty please? With chocolate licorice and the black icing you like so much with little gummy bats on top? Something's missing from that… I don't beg usually, so please? (puppy eyes) Pwease?**_

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_For all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: "It might have been."_

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As I flew I was in a sort of a trance. I didn't try to avoid clouds, and I didn't flinch when I was suddenly soaked in water from them. The wind blew away my thoughts, and I finally felt free. Then lightning flashed in front of my eyes and I turned intangible to avoid being struck. Nothing slowed me down, nothing made me stop. I had to get to Vlad's castle.

It had been a really long time since I had flown long distance. I didn't have to think about where I was going, and most of the time I just watched the ground below me speed past. I wasn't even aware of time passing. The same thought drove me on and on. _Clockwork would help me._

Why I hadn't thought of him earlier I don't know. He could reset time back to the way it was, stop the accident from happening, and erase my memories. Then I would still be friends with Tucker and Sam, and I could be in love with Sam again. My parents would be alive, Jazz wouldn't have been through so much pain, and I would live my life the way I should have.

But in order to find Clockwork I had to get into the Ghost Zone, and that meant going to Vlad's mansion. That was the last thing I wanted to do. He would only rub my face in the facts. Hopefully I could avoid him and just sneak into his lab to use the portal.

At some point the sun came up. I realized later that I probably missed one of the most beautiful sunrises ever, but at that point I was too preoccupied to notice something as worthless as a burning orb of fire rising above the clouds.

The sun had almost set when I saw the silhouette of his castle. Or at least, the remains of his castle.

What had once been an impressive building was now a pile of stone. Towers had crumbled into nothing, and the practically manicured lawn was now full of weeds about a foot high. Disbelief kept me on course with the ruins, and I landed in them even though one of the walls would probably fall on me.

Then, for some reason, I heard a familiar hum. It was a ghost portal. I turned intangible and fell through the floor. The laboratory was still intact, and the portal was on and seemed to be waiting for me. Hope spiked through me and my heart skipped a beat. I looked around nervously, expecting Vlad to jump out of the shadows, but nothing happened.

The Ghost Zone looked the same as it ever did. I felt several ghost's eyes on me, but none of them showed themselves. The doors floated past, all of them looking exactly like the last one, and I realized that I was lost. I could navigate the Ghost Zone from the portal that had been in my basement, but not from this one.

A small pang of sadness went through me at the thought of my old basement, destroyed in the fire just like everything else, but my optimistic side pushed that away. _'Clockwork will help' _I heard my mom's voice say, and flew even faster.

"Clockwork!" I called. If he heard or not he didn't show it. My voice sounded weak even to myself, and in the emptiness of the Ghost Zone it sounded almost like a whisper. "I need your help! Please!"

And then I was there in Clockwork's castle. He looked like he always did, and at the moment he was in his adult form. I noticed that I was taller than him. "Hello Danny." he said, his voice even. "You came to ask me to change time, didn't you."

I half smiled. "I can't believe I didn't think of coming to you sooner. You can change time so that Tucker never blasted me with the Specter Sleeper, and-"

"No."

"My parent's will be alive again, and I can finish high school and-"

"I will not change the past."

"Sam won't give up on me and I can finally tell her that I love her." I smiled, waiting for Clockwork to say something. Then I realized he already had. My smile vanished.

He finally continued. "What has happened has happened. I changed time for you twice, once to save you and once because you needed to be taught a lesson. I will not do it again."

"Clockwork-"

"Just because you are half ghost you are not entitled to control what happens and what does not. It would be best for you to just move on with your life and forget about me and my powers. The accident truly was an accident. I will not change time again."

Despair replaced my hope as the last chance I had at getting my old life back soared away. "My parents are dead. I have no one else to turn to. You have to help me Clockwork, my eyes… they're red, like an evil ghost's. I don't want to be like the one's I used to fight. I don't want to be evil."

"Danny, time is a delicate balance of fate and luck. No one should have the ability to change it…"

As he spoke I realized that images were passing by on the portal behind him. It was two people admiring a baby. Sam and Tucker. Then the scenes shifted to the family celebrating Christmas and Hanukah with their small son. He ripped the paper off and played in it, not even bothering to look at the actual present. Next was the boy learning to ride a bicycle, and then the little kid looking thoughtfully into a cradle that had another baby. Throughout it all Sam and Tucker looked so happy, so utterly content with their pleasant life.

That could have been me out there. I could have married Sam, and had kids, and we could celebrate our holidays together. Instead it was Tucker. He had the life I wanted, and Clockwork was going to do nothing about it.

I didn't know if Clockwork even said more than a few sentences. Cold streaks of water ran down my face, and I discovered that I could cry in my ghost form. I fell to my knees and sobbed. I truly had lost everything. My parents, my friends, my identity- all of it was gone, and no one was going to help me bring my old life back. Harsh reality finally set in, and I wept for the lost years.

At some point I stopped. I couldn't force anymore tears. The despair I had felt turned to a freezing numbness, and I felt like an empty shell. My eyes went up to Clockwork, who had been watching the whole thing with an indifferent look on his face. He knew this would happen. He knew that my life would be ruined, and he didn't care.

Irrational anger came over me and I was suddenly on my feet again. A brilliant red ectoblast formed around my fist, and whatever I must have been hoping to see in Clockwork's expression- maybe fear or surprise- never appeared. I fired at exactly the same time that his hand touched the button on the top of his staff.

Then I was back in Vlad's lab. The ectobeam I had fired collided with the Portal instead of Clockwork, and it made a high pitched shriek before it shut down. I swore loudly and looked at it, knowing that I couldn't fix it.

I stormed up the stairs and found myself in the remains of Vlad's study. As I strode across the floor I heard a small crunch and looked down, seeing that I had stepped on a mirror. Not really having a reason, I bent down and picked up a piece of the reflective glass and stared at my reflection.

My hair was longer than it had been, and my face looked thinner and paler. The red eyes continued to stare at me, and I crushed the glass in my fist, barely noticing the pain as it sliced through my hand. I watched with little interest as the neon blood oozed between my fingers.

Words came from my mouth, and they sounded distant, like it wasn't really me talking. It was a sort of a vow, and I felt power going into the words. "If I must suffer, humanity will suffer with me. Especially Tucker Foley. I, who have been sentenced to a life without love, now declare my separation from my previous existence as a hero. I shall blanket my enemies in the endless winter that is my hatred. First: Amity Park. Then: The world!"

And I dropped the blood stained glass onto the ground.


	6. Old Man

_**This chapter was written before I watched Infinite Realms. In fact I still have not watched Infinite Realms. Just keep that in mind, okay?**_

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_Old man, look at my life, I'm a lot like you were._

**A line from "Old Man" a song by Neil Young.**

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I examined the deep gash in my hand, watching as it started to heal. Apparently during my twelve year nap I learned how to regenerate. The skin sewed itself back together and I didn't even have a scar. The white glove was still ripped though.

After making the vow I felt drained. My feet slowly carried me out of the basement and back into the ruined castle. I looked around. Where would I go now? I had no idea where Sam and Tucker were living, I couldn't get to the Ghost Zone without a portal, and Jazz… I suddenly realized that I didn't know how to contact Jazz either. I wouldn't be able to find her house.

Slowly I walked through the castle remains, thinking about what to do next. I had no one to turn to, nowhere to go. For a moment an insane little thought skittered through my head. I could go anywhere I wanted to go and just start over. Just forget about my past and start a new life. A small part of me wanted to follow that idea, but I knew that I never would be happy. My life before the accident seemed so close, and even though it was hard sometimes at least I _had _a life. Living as someone who everyone had forgotten was very painful, and I wanted my old existence back.

My thoughts were interrupted when I heard something move behind me. My ghost sense went off and I sprung into the air just as an ectoblast flew under me. I sent my own blast back at my attacker and heard someone yell. Finally I spotted him lying on the ground. It was Plasmius.

If I thought that twelve years had changed my face it was nothing compared to Plasmius'. His skin had faded from blue to almost white, and it was stretched tightly over his bones. Vlad's eyes were staring up into the air, and they each had a thin cloudy film over them. He looked like he was about to die. His human form was probably worse, and I silently hoped he wouldn't decide to show me.

He stood up slowly, trying to hide the fact that he barely had enough strength to even move. There was an almost inaudible crack as he opened his mouth to speak. "I should have known that you'd come here." He said, focusing on a spot in the air to the right of me. "I have- had one of the two ghost portals in existence." Something about his voice was different. It took me a moment to realize that it didn't have the same tone that it used to. Instead of smug and confident he now sounded tired and defeated.

Vlad didn't even try to fly up to my level. He just stood there. Finally I landed about ten feet away from him. Apparently he heard my feet touch the ground because he instantly focused on me. I had a lot of questions but I didn't know what to ask first. I settled with, "There aren't any more ghost portals. The one my parents had is gone too." Did he even know that they were dead?

To my surprise he laughed. "Your parents have been gone a long time. I was talking about the portal that the Foley's have." Anger ran through me again. Tucker stole my parent's inventions too? Vlad laughed again, but this time his voice sounded a little more like it used to. "You hate him. He took away the perfect woman, and now you hate him with every molecule of your being. I had always hoped things would work out this way."

I took a deep breath and managed to stop myself from blasting him. The last thing I wanted to do right now was kill the only person who might understand my problem. Vlad laughed again for no particular reason. Then again, maybe a blast or two would be good for him…

"What do you mean?" I said, barely concealing my anger.

"You ended up just like me, Daniel. I am a half ghost, I once loved a beautiful girl, and my best friend betrayed me and took that girl away. So I turned to revenge, wasted years of my life plotting, and then they both were dead before I could do anything about it." He smirked. "And I ended up a blind old man."

There was silence for a moment. I was fighting back the words at the tip of my tongue, but finally I couldn't hold it in anymore. "What happened to you?"

Vlad let out a long sigh. "Your parents died a year and a half after your accident. At the time I was currently putting the finishing touches on a plan that would ensure me Maddie's love. Without you around to interfere, things were going quite smoothly. They of course had told me what had happened, and then asked me for their help." His white eyes darkened, if that was possible, and he continued. "Of course I said yes, but I didn't do anything to help. Perhaps if I had they might still…"

He cut off suddenly and glared at me, well, to the left of me, but he got his point across. Vlad took a small step closer, and habit made me back away. It always meant he was going to attack when he did that. His voice was louder and hate filled. "I instantly regretted everything. Every insult that I had thrown at Jack, all of the pain I caused them both by torturing you, everything. Death has a funny way of putting things in perspective. So I spent the next ten years looking for their ghosts in the Ghost Zone. I figured that they would become ghosts because they wouldn't want to leave you behind." I frowned at how similar his logic was to mine.

"But they weren't." he hissed. "They were gone forever. I learned something interesting in the Ghost Zone though. It affects the human body differently than it does ghosts. Time moves differently in the empty space the dead call a world, and unfortunately it speeds things up for humans. Instead of ten years, my human half aged fifty." He pointed to his eyes. "And this is the effect that being over a hundred years old has done to my ghost half. If I change back, I'll die."

I took another step back, even though Vlad hadn't moved. My fight or flight instincts had started kicking in, and I was bordering on flight.

Then suddenly he was right in front of me, holding on to the front of my costume. He moved awfully fast for an old person. Up close I could see his skull under his almost transparent skin, and his breath was stale like the inside of a tomb. "We are exactly alike. You will suffer a fate similar to mine, and knowing that is just as sweet as revenge."

Then he said something that I wish he had just kept a secret. "Your parents- they didn't die in a fire- as I'm sure you've been told. They died in an explosion. A horrible fiery explosion that consumed the house in seconds. What happened? They were exhausted from never sleeping, insane with grief, and they were building a new invention. Something that they hoped would wake you up."

"It was because of you that they are dead. You let your temper get the best of you that day twelve years ago. You let yourself get hit. You let yourself sleep for twelve years because you were too weak to wake yourself up. Now their gone, and I'm like this because of you."

His hands tightened, and I wanted him to let go. I wanted him to let go very badly.

The glowing aura around my frame suddenly brightened and spread outward. Then it turned red and I felt like _I_ was exploding. I shut my eyes against the never ending crimson, and when I opened them Vlad was several feet away lying on the ground. I looked up at the sky, considering my options, and finally decided that I couldn't just leave him.

I walked slowly over to Vlad and to my horror I realized that he was in his human form. He was unrecognizable. His white hair and beard had grown almost down to his knees, and his black suit was hanging loosely on his thin body. His skin was grey and tight on his bones, so tight he didn't even appear to have skin anymore. Vlad's blue eyes were sunken deep in their sockets, and they didn't focus on anything. I would have assumed he was dead, but I could see his heart beating erratically in his ribcage.

He struggled to form words, and managed, "Finally." Then his ribcage seemed to shrink, and the struggling organ finally stopped for good. I stood still, frozen in shock. The fight or flight instincts were back, and I took another look at the man who I had fought ever since he found out about my ghost powers, the man I thought would always be around to irritate me forever.

And I flew away as fast as I could.


	7. Appearances And Allies

_**Very long chapter, it could easily be two, but what the heck!**_

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Appearances are deceiving, there's no 'can be' about it.

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Finally I realized that I had to land. I didn't know how long I had been flying, but a very deep exhaustion had settled into me. My legs almost gave out when I landed, but I leaned against a tree for support and looked around.

I was in a small clearing in the middle of some forest. If I had felt lost before, it was nothing compared to what I was now. There was no sign of human life anywhere. I looked down at my black and white costume and my eyes focused on the DP symbol. Sam- how could she have given up on me so easily?

I sank farther down the tree, not even feeling my back scrape against the bark. What now? I had nowhere left to go. Everyone was gone. Vlad… I dropped the ground with my head in my hands. Vlad was dead. I had killed him. _I had killed him. _How could I have done that? I didn't mean to. I didn't _want _to. Right?

My stomach flipped over as his lifeless body floated in front of my eyes. It had to be an accident. He was old. What was he thinking anyway? He knew that he was close to dying, but he still attacked me. I had to fight back. Besides, I had a lot of new powers that I couldn't control yet.

But something activated the power. It wasn't just an accident. I shut my eyes and listened to the silence. There wasn't even the sound of my heartbeat. I forced myself to remember what I was thinking the moment… the moment I killed him, just to figure out what had caused the blast.

"It was because of you that they're dead. Because of you…" His hands tightened… I wanted him to let go… 

And then…

It was instinct. Some sort of ghost reflex that I had no control over. So Vlad died because of an unknown feature of my ghost half. But that wasn't what bothered me. I knew, that some small part of me _enjoyed _killing him. It loved watching the man who had caused me so much pain finally choke on his breath and end his life. And there was nothing I could do about it. I wasn't a hero anymore, I was a murderer.

Suddenly everything cracked down on me and it was too much. I took a deep breath and screamed. My powers went bezerk, following the same pattern as my emotions. Trees burst into green flame and then froze, the ground in front of me shook and was blown away and I ended up floating in the air. Ghost energy streamed from my every pore, like my body was trying desperately to rid itself from my other half. Strange beams and powers revealed themselves. Flashes of color in green, black, and red.

I stopped, panting and exhausted, but I was still in my ghost form. Even after using up all of that power I still had more. I landed and forced myself to change back. After the shift at first nothing happened. Then gravity, which I had been free from for a week, slammed into me and knocked me onto the ground. My body couldn't take the pain and I blacked out.

When I woke up I was screaming Sam's name. I had had a nightmare, and it's meaning was extremely clear.

I was standing at the front of an altar, wearing a tuxedo. The crowd was full of people who looked ecstatic. I smiled widely, getting caught up in the mood. It was my big day, _my wedding. _Then she started down the aisle, Sam Manson holding her father's arm and smiling back at me under her veil. The church lit up with a magnificent light as she came down the long path.

Then I noticed that the faces in the crowd weren't ones I recognized, and the happy smiles were now almost sinister. I tried to get Sam to notice, but she was too excited to look anywhere but at the front of the church. And she was going _so _slowly. Even the priest seemed to be looking at me like I didn't belong there.

Suddenly there was a horrible pain in my back and I turned my head and stared into Tucker's smiling face. He pulled a knife dripping with blood out of me and said, "Oh, I stabbed you. It was only an accident though." I couldn't stand to look at him, and tried desperately to make it to Sam. My feet took me a few steps towards Sam, who was still too far to reach, before I collapsed facing my murderer and the altar.

My body was frozen and I could do nothing but watch as Sam finally made it up to the front, looked surprised for a moment at seeing Tucker instead of me, but accepted him anyway. It was like she couldn't see me lying still in the aisle. As they kissed I tried to close my eyes, but they refused to respond. Then Tucker glanced at me, smirked while still holding Sam, and plunged the knife with my blood on it into Sam's back.

Then I found myself lying on the ground of the destroyed forest back in reality. My body was shaking uncontrollably, and I wished that I had taken the clothes Jazz had offered before I flew away. I forced myself to stand and stretch, before changing into my ghost half. Tucker was going to pay for what he had done, I was sure of that now. Promises meant nothing anymore.

I looked around at the destruction again, trying to decide how to react. Ashamed or… impressed. Then something strange caught my eye. It was daytime, and the sun was shining, but there appeared to be a dark hole in the air. I walked toward it slowly, stepping over fallen trees. It was about the size of my fist, and about three feet off of the ground. I kneeled down and gasped as I realized that it was a small portal into the ghost zone.

Memories of Dan Phantom came back, and I realized that I must have accidentally made it. I put my hand on the edge of the opening and concentrated. I could feel it widening and focused harder. A black glow surrounded my hand and the portal grew until it was as tall as I was. Excitement filled me. I could go into the ghost zone and find Sam's portal, then Tucker would be in for a nasty surprise.

But wait, there were flaws. Vlad never seemed to realize that if he had killed my father then my mom wouldn't turn to him; she would hate him, especially after I told her that Vlad was Plasmius. Even after twelve years Sam and Tucker would recognize my ghost form. Also there was the disturbing fact that Vlad had aged five times faster than he should have in there.

I glanced around the clearing, then at the portal. Nothing mattered anymore, not even my own life. I had nowhere else to go anyways. I stepped through the hole in the air and pulled it closed behind me.

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As I floated through the endless purple and green void I realized that ghosts were staring at me. They had been before, but this time I could here them whispering my name. How did so many of them still recognize me? Every now and then I'd see a ghost vanish as I approached, and I was beginning to get annoyed.

Just as I was deciding that I wasn't going to put up with any more whispers I ran into a few ghosts who hadn't realized I was coming. I was suddenly bashed in the side of the head with something heavy. I glared at my attacker and realized that her green hair and red coat looked very familiar. "Kitty?"

She blinked and said, "Danny?"

There was a creaking noise behind her. "Who is it?" Johnny 13 said. I looked past Kitty and saw Johnny exactly like he had been after Dan Phantom had hurt him somehow. Clockwork couldn't stop him from becoming bound to a wheelchair with his shadow on his lap. "Well if it isn't Danny Phantom. I suppose I should be surprised you woke up, but I always figured you would."

"How did you know?" I watched Shadow's eye's focus on me, but instead of looking ready to fight, it seemed bored.

Johnny laughed. "We may be ghosts, but we still talk about what's going on. Practically every ghost in the zone lined up at the portal to visit a Phantom free Amity Park." He noticed that I was focused on Shadow. "I got in a cycle accident a few years after you fell asleep. Apparently ghosts can't break their spines without bad side effects." _So I've been pretending to be a blanket for this cripple ever since._

I blinked and looked around. That wasn't Johnny or Kitty. Shadow was staring up at me again.

"So when did you, um, get up?" Kitty looked like she had just seen a ghost, no joke intended. "I mean, you've been out for so long, things must seem pretty different now." _Wow, thanks for stating the obvious._

"Yeah, things are… different." The voice could hear what we were saying quite clearly. Was it Shadow?

_'Bingo. I'm bored with the Broken Biker and Hello Kitty. Trust me, they are not a couple you want to spend an eternity with. Something's different about you, something that I like. Mind if I join you?'_

"Hellloooo! Danny! What's the matter with you?" Kitty waved her hand in front of my face and Johnny suddenly looked very suspicious. "You spaced out for a while there. So how are things out there in the land of the living? John and I don't get out there very often, especially since we don't know where the portal is anymore." Whether she meant to or not, I felt like she was purposely mentioning my parents' death.

"Kitten, you know he probably doesn't want to talk about it. He came in here for a reason after all." He looked up at me. "So how's it going hero? Still feel like it's worth it to protect a city that forgot about you as soon as you left? A world that hurt you when you did so much for it?" Johnny smiled wickedly. "Even your girl?"

I was seething. Shadow's voice pierced my anger like a needle. _"Listen Danny, I know that you're sick of being to good guy. I'm sick of doing nothing but warm a ghost's lap. Your power, your anger, I haven't felt anything so strong in decades."_

"You honestly think you're better off than me?" I said, smirking. "You live in this empty void while I can travel between both worlds. I can do anything I want, while you- well, you're stuck in a wheelchair. Even your shadow doesn't feel loyal to you anymore."

Suddenly Johnny realized that what I said was true. "Shadow, don't think about it…" I heard him mutter under his breath. Then he swore loudly. "Stupid thing, how dare you break our connection!"

_'Now or never Danny. I can change your appearance and help you like I used to help 13. You need help, I can tell. Let me join you. Please!' _It sounded desperate.

"Fine!" I said out loud. Johnny grabbed Shadow and tried to stop it from leaving, but the dark ghost just slipped through his fingers and launched itself at me. Before I could stop it the ghost surrounded me. Black smoke swirled around my frame, and I could feel it seeping into my costume, changing it. Even my hair changed. _"And for the finishing touch." _Shadow settled itself on my back and became a cape.

Johnny and Kitty stared at me with their mouths open. "Wow, and I thought he was good looking _before_…" Kitty said. Johnny glared at her and then at me.

"First my Shadow, and then my girl? You're going to pay Phantom." Kitty came to her senses and grabbed Johnny's wheelchair. They came towards me, which didn't seem very frightening until Kitty pulled an ectogun from her purse and handed it to Johnny. I tried to put up a shield, but nothing happened.

_'Your powers are drained. You didn't happen to destroy a large area all at once in a fit of anger, did you? I suggest flying away.'_

I turned and flew as fast as I could just as an ectoblast almost hit my head. Doors sped past and I had to dodge them all. Finally I remembered that I could open portals, but my shield didn't work, so would my other power?

_'Look, I did say I would help. I'll go distract them while you open a portal.'_ Shadow slithered off of me and transformed into a silhouette of me. He waved and took off in a different direction, taking Johnny and Kitty with him. I stared at the space in front of me and focused on making a portal.

First a shield appeared when I opened my palm. Then when I waved my hand in a circle a spiral shaped blast destroyed a nearby door, and although that was cool it wasn't what I needed. I focused on creating the green mist a portal had, and brought both my hands together. Suddenly I could feel the edge of the air in my fists, like silk, and I pulled it apart.

A portal appeared. I grinned and floated in front of it, until Shadow said, '_Good, great, you got it.'_ And slammed into my back, shoving me through the portal. _'Now close it.'_ I tried to grab the edge of the portal, panicked when I couldn't, focused, and tried again. This time I was able to hold onto the silky air and pulled it shut.

_'Ah, the human world. So many things to destroy. Too bad this place looks like someone else already did it in.'_ I turned around and suddenly wished I was back in the ghost zone. Books were scattered over the floor, and I recognized the green and gold room. Somehow I was back in Vlad's house.

Then I saw my reflection in a cracked mirror. I didn't recognize myself. Shadow was a red and black cape that went almost all of the way down to the ground. My hair was still silver-white, but two blood red streaks came down and covered some of my face. I had slightly sharper canine teeth, but there weren't any other changes to my face.

My costume was what surprised me. Where it had been white it was now the same red as my hair. Where red met black there was almost a fiery look, like the red was actually flame, and the gloves were only red around the edge, the fists were black. My white collar was also red, but the red extended down my chest and covered up the emblem I had had for so long. I gently touched the face in the mirror and the glass shattered as if it had finally served its purpose and could break.

I was about to turn away when I noticed a lock behind the frame of the mirror. Curiosity won and I turned the safe lock intangible and pulled the door open. Stacks of hundred dollar bills sat in front of me. Ideas began forming in my head. Sam and Tucker would never recognize me now, and I had the money to start a life for myself. Because before Sam could turn to someone after her husband's death, she would need someone to turn to. Danny Fenton may no longer exist to her, but there were an infinite number of other names I could choose from.

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Sam and Tuck's POV 

"In other news, Multimillionaire Vlad Masters was found dead today in his Wisconsin Mansion of unknown causes." Tucker glanced up from his laptop to watch the news, which he rarely did. "Much of his house was also destroyed, but many investigators say that the explosion which killed Masters was not responsible for most of the damage."

The screen changed to show a nervous looking man. "Well, many of the rooms appeared to have more controlled scorch marks. Some of our rookies think that the Wisconsin Ghost who was said to haunt these halls caused it. Personally I believe that Masters was insane, and did the damage himself. A guy can't vanish for ten years and come back with his brain intact." Back to the newswoman.

"Vlad Masters left no will, so his fortune will go to charities and to the government." Her face showed quite clearly that she thought the money should be spent in other ways. "More at eleven"

Her co-anchor began with a new story. "For some lighter news, we'll take a look at what's going on in the international small breed dog show. The champion this year is Pookie the Second, who's owner is Das-" Tucker flicked off the TV in disgust. He never liked how the news people could talk about death and dogs with the same tone of voice.

Sam came downstairs and said, "What's wrong? You look like someone died."

"Someone did. Vlad Masters." Sam's eyes widened at familiar name. It brought back so many memories.

"So Danny's archenemy is gone at last." Silence filled the room. "Did it say how?"

Tucker shook his head. "They just said unknown." His thoughts were locked on Danny too. How would his friend react to everything if he woke up? Tucker thought. He had given up hope on Danny ever waking up, but now he wasn't sure that Danny should anyway. What would happen when he found out his parents and Vlad were dead? Or that Sam and him were married? Tucker decided he didn't want to find out.


	8. Hatred Kills

**_Filler chapter! A bit of time has passed now. The only part I feel satisfied with is the end of Danny's POV. You'll see. _**

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Hatered is both a steroid and a poison. Channeled, it can be used to achieve great things, but it will always come back and strangle your soul until only darkness remains. Even removing the cause of your hate won't kill the pain. It makes it grow.

**2wingo.**

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I gazed out the window at the city of Amity Park below me. Everything was going smoothly. After stealing one outfit I was able to buy the rest, and could blend in with the normal people now. I bought an apartment at the top of a building, nice, but no one would assume I was rich. That was what I wanted.

It turned out Sam and Tucker lived somewhere in the now huge Amity Park. They were in the news every now and then. Apparently they were ghost hunters. That added insult to injury. How could they do that after all the pain that the paranormal had caused me?

During the day I walked around Amity and began to get familiar with it again. It was much bigger than I had remembered. I also began to research the ghost activity pattern since I had been put in a coma. It seemed like Sam and Tuck had had trouble controlling the ghosts. Then a few years ago a ghost boy appeared and began taking care of the problems. My eyes narrowed as I read articles about him. I'd have to meet him sometime.

At night I flew around the city, watching the people from above. I never showed myself. Mostly I trained with Shadow. It continued to ask me when we were going to start destroying the town. I lied and told it soon.

Once I saw Jazz coming towards me, her eyes focused on me. I dodged into an ally and waited invisibly for her to pass. She stopped in front of the entrance, probably wondering how I had vanished. Then she sighed and moved on. Jazz looked tired and sad, and I wanted so badly to reveal myself to her. I turned away and walked deeper into the shadows. My old life was gone, and it was too late to go back. I decided it was probably better if I just left her alone anyway. There would be less pain for her when she found out I had broken my promise.

But as always something unexpected happened. I was making my daily rounds of the city when the screaming started. My ghost sense went off and I spotted an unfamiliar ghost throwing cars at people. Their screams seemed incredibly loud in my ears, and I knew I couldn't just watch them get hurt or worse. Murderer or not those people were innocent.

I changed into my ghost form and flew up behind the other ghost. He flinched when I tapped him in his shoulder and spun around. "Oh, I was expecting the ghost-" That was all he got out before I punched him in the face, created a portal, and chucked him through it. Below me I could hear the people I had saved talking to each other in confusion. Then my ghost sense went off for a second time.

This time it was my turn to turn around. The new ghost looked about sixteen. He was wearing a black hooded jacket over a white shirt, and black pants. His green eyes met my red ones and I thought for a moment that he had said something, but his lips hadn't moved. Then he spoke. "Who are you?" I remained silent, wishing that I could get away. Suddenly another of my new powers showed itself, and I was back in my apartment. I could teleport now too, apparently.

Still in my ghost form I paced back and forth across the floor. Shadow dropped from my shoulders and changed into its normal form. _'I can stand the fact that you're having trouble giving up old habits, but what was the deal with the kid? Do you know him?'_

"No, but something is strange about all of this. A heroic ghost boy in black and white who saves Amity regularly, an adult halfa who had the girl he loved taken from him by his best friend... It sounds like I'm living Vlad's life." I tried to laugh it away, but my laugh sounded a little hysterical. "Shadow, Vlad said that I was going to end up like he did. Was he right?"

_"We can't tell until the end."_

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When I switched on the news to pass the time and take my mind off of other things I was shocked to find myself on the screen. "Today a strange ghost in black and red saved the town instead of our usual hero. The ghost supposedly appeared out of nowhere and disappeared just as quickly when confronted by the local savior. Is he a friendly spook, or just another rival for Amity's heroic apparition to beat?"

What now? I sighed, and stood up. A flight would clear my head. I changed into my ghost form and jumped out the window into the night sky. The cold air pushed everything else out of my head, and I almost could forget everything what had happened to me. Until I was shot in the back, that is.

I glared at my attacker and gasped when I realized who it was. Valerie was floating on her jet sled with a gun pointed at me. "Alright ghost, I don't know what you think is so great about Amity Park, but I'm giving you ten seconds to throw yourself through a portal like you did with that other ghost today before I get violent."

After all of these years Valerie was still obsessed with hunting ghosts. I was suddenly taken over by my anger. She had helped ruin my life. If she hadn't been so obsessed with ghosts, if she hadn't teamed up with Vlad to get rid of my ghost half, then I never would have been a target for the specter sleeper. Even after causing that she was exactly the same as always. Unlike who I had saved, Valerie wasn't innocent at all.

"What is your problem?" I demanded, surprising her. "I've done nothing wrong, in fact I even saved innocent people, and you still are threatening me!" She tried to fire her gun but I ripped it out of her hands and crushed it. "Now you aren't even listening to me. You never listened to anyone except yourself!" I couldn't stop myself. I grabbed her off of her jet sled and threw her to the ground. We were in a deserted area.

She tried to stand up but couldn't. I pinned her to the ground and glared fiercely at her. "Look ghost, I don't know why you got so offended, but-"

"What's the matter? You can't handle it when I actually fight back? You always acted so tough when I took it easy on you. After twelve years I assumed you would be a better fighter. Especially since you always knew this day was coming anyway. I guess you were right after all, I did turn evil."

Shadow slowly reverted my costume back to what it used to be, obeying my unspoken order, revealing the old abused Danny Phantom. Valerie's eyes bulged out of their sockets and she gasped. "Danny?"

I grinned wickedly as Shadow brought the red and black costume back. "Hello Valerie, and goodbye." The darkness was pierced by her loud scream as I brought my revenge upon her at last.

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My feet didn't want to cooperate as I walked up the sidewalk in my human form. I kept stumbling and tripping. Then I started running, pushing past people who probably thought I was drunk. Twice I fell, but I got up and ran even faster. Finally I made it to my apartment. My hands shook as I tried to unlock the door, and I dropped the key. I snatched it up and phased through the door instead of trying to use the human way.

I thought my heart was going to explode; it was pounding so hard and so fast. I collapsed onto the floor with my arms around my chest and shut my eyes against the horrible images being pressed in on them. It didn't help. I couldn't block out her scream, or the way she had looked at me with her pleading eyes until they grew cold. I began to shiver uncontrollably. With my eyes closed I could still see the blood that was all over the hands that were wrapped around me. It had vanished when I was in my human form, but I wouldn't be able to tell if it was on the black and red suit. It blended in too perfectly.

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**Sam and Tuck's POV**

"The body of Valerie Grey was discovered today in the abandoned part of town today. It was discovered by accident when a person who wishes to remain anonymous got lost and stumbled upon the corpse. The body was severely disfigured and burned, and had to be identified by dental records. According to investigators the murderer was wearing gloves, and is unknown. Miss Grey was a well-known ghost hunter, and many believe that it was a ghost that killed her. All civilians are to be on the lookout for suspicious behavior of any kind and are urged to report it immediately."

Today it was Sam who saw the news. She was glad that the kids were at school and Tucker was in his office so that they wouldn't see her cry. Valerie's death was another coincidence that reminded her of her best friend lying in the hospital, and this time the victim was a friend of hers. Again for the billionth time she wished that Danny was awake.


	9. Powers And Meetings

**_I hope you guys like this chapter! I had fun writing it. You'll see._**

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_"All charming people have something to conceal, usually their need for the appreciation of others."_

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Several days after… it… happened I remained in a stupor. I vaguely remembered performing the necessary actions to keep myself alive, but it was habit rather than want or need. My trance was a sort of safety measure. If I wasn't thinking then I wasn't reminded of what I had done, or who I had done it to.

Shadow was the one who pulled me back. It was my link to the outside world. Every day it would explore and tell me what was going on in Amity Park. I hadn't asked it to, but it wanted me to come back to reality and tried to induce any form of thought.

Then one day it succeeded. _"I saw the girl you're after today.' _It said simply. I blinked once and stared at him. _"You think about her a lot. She looked sad, but different from the pictures I get from you. She was wearing red, not black. And pants, not a skirt, but I recognized her." _Then Shadow studied my face for a reaction.

I closed my eyes and sighed. Sam, I'm doing this all for you. Valerie never accepted me the way Sam did. She never loved me- both halves of me- and now I needed Sam more than ever. Valerie didn't have any last words, but Vlad's seemed to fit nicely. _Finally. _I finally gave up fully on Valerie ever accepting me. I finally realized that she had been right all along. I finally killed someone intentionally.

The next day I was going to go out again. Shadow was extremely happy; the first time I had seen it that way. But as soon as I got out on the street the voices started.

At first I thought it was just the normal sound of people talking around me. But as I passed a girl in the street I realized something was wrong. "Ugh, I'm beat. I knew going to that party last night was a bad idea. Especially since the punch was spiked…"

Her lips hadn't moved at all.

Then I passed an older man. "I hate my job, I hate my wife, I hate my kids… and I hate the creepy look that black haired guy is giving me!" I focused on the ground in front of me. His lips had remained locked in a frown the entire time.

The one sided conversations continued, one person's rising out of the murmur as I drew nearer, then fading only to be replaced with another one a few moments later. "Wow that girl is butt ugly," "I'm in love with him," "Work sucks, maybe I'll jump in front of that bus…" and many more personal bits.

I silently asked Shadow what was going on. _"For some reason you have the power to read minds now. It might be because you spent the last week without any thought at all, or because we can talk through thoughts, or both, or something else."_

It would **Oh my god, black hair blue eyes is so totally hot **have been an interesting power if **Tonight I'm going to organize my socks **it didn't interrupt my own thoughts. I wanted more than anything to cover my ears with my hands, but I knew that wouldn't work. Instead I half ran away from the crowd and ducked into an ally, getting several, **What's wrong with him? **thoughts thrown at me.

Now that I was away from the people the voices dimmed but never really left my head. I changed into my ghost form and invisibly launched into the air. The higher I went the more the voices faded, until it was almost completely silent. Then a single voice grew louder as someone came closer.

**My ghost sense went off, but where's the ghost? He must be invisible. I don't have time for this!** I watched as the ghost boy flew past. **Maybe it's the one I saw a week ago. He doesn't seem to enjoy fighting. **His thought stream faded away and I considered following him but decided against it. I didn't need more attention. Then my power became a lot more useful

Out of the buzz of noise I realized that I could pick his mental voice out of the others. I could follow with my mind exactly where he was going. He flew for a bit descended to the ground about a hundred yards away, and then began walking.

"_Interesting. Maybe…'_ Suddenly the drone was cut off.

"What did you do?" I asked, trying to keep the annoyance out of my voice. The ghost kid's trail had vanished too.

_"We're connected through thoughts, remember? I know you're annoyed. Anyway, it turns out that since we are connected by thoughts, I can block out the others. Just ask and I can activate the power when you want, but it was interfering with you trying to blend in with the humans.'_

I sighed and thanked Shadow before floating back down to earth. It was nice to have my own thoughts back. Everything was back to normal, and I resumed exploring Amity Park. I even was able to forget about Valerie for a little while. Then I turned a corner and stopped dead.

"Shadow," I whispered. "Stop blocking my new power and listen to me very carefully." I stared at the person who had just stepped out of a building and was walking away. For a moment she had looked my way, her purple eyes meeting mine for a second. Long black hair framed her pale face, and I knew in an instant that it was Sam. The urge to run up to her and tell her who I was almost overpowered me, but my feet remained where they were. I told Shadow my plan and felt it drift away. Then I began to walk after Sam.

Shadow sped past Sam and wrapped its hand around the base of a sign. She was right in front of it when it fell over, making her trip and stumble into the street. There was a loud blaring noise as a car sped towards her, and she stood frozen in terror. Then I was next to her, with my hand on hers, and I dragged her back onto the sidewalk.

It took her a moment to regain her composure, but her hand remained in mine, holding on for dear life. "Are you alright?" I said gently, wondering if she was going to recognize me. "That was close."

Her violet eyes widened and she looked up into my face. Then she noticed her death grip on my fingers and blushed before pulling her hand away. **Ugh, that was the closest I've been to dying in a long time. Lucky this guy was around to save me. Oh yeah, I should probably thank him. Or at least say something before he gets creeped out. **I couldn't stop the small smile that appeared on my face.

"Thanks. I don't even want to think about what would have happened if you hadn't been around." She paused and looked at me again. "Do I know you? I feel like I've met you before."

I wanted to scream, Yes! You have! It's me, Danny, and I love you! "No, I don't think so. I would have remembered you. Were you in a hurry to get somewhere? I could escort you."

**A man who I just met wants to escort me to lunch. Come on Sam, live a little! Besides, he saved my life, so he can't be too bad.** "I was just on my way to a very late lunch. You really don't have to come. You're probably busy too." **Although I sort of hope not. **

My smile widened. "I know a great place just a few blocks away. We can walk there." I wanted to reach for her hand, but I knew she wouldn't like that. As we started walking I prayed that my acting skills were good enough to fool Sam.

"I forgot to ask you your name." She said, looking sideways at me. "I'm Sam Foley."

I hoped that she hadn't heard my almost silent breath. "I'm David Parks." I said, making the name up as I said it and hoping I would remember it later. Maybe she would notice the initials, but even if she did it would just be a coincidence to her. It took everything I had not to reveal myself. "So you're married?"

"Yes, I am." **How the heck did he know?** "How did you know?"

I realized my mistake and quickly thought up an excuse. "You're wearing a ring." Hopefully she was, it was a guess.

"Oh, right." **Smooth Sam, now he probably thinks you're a paranoid freak.** "I've been married for nine years now."

"Sorry if I made you nervous or something, I was curious." I met her eyes again and hoped I looked sincere. "You're lucky to have found someone"

"Yeah…" I wanted to hear hesitation in her voice so badly that I wasn't sure if I really had or not. Her thoughts were similar. I saw the restaurant and stopped. "Is this the place?" **It can't be! This place is an all-vegetarian restaurant!**

"Is it all right?" had she given up on her old habits? Tucker couldn't have forced her to eat meat, could he?

She read the concern in my voice and said, "It's just that half of my family will eat nothing but meat, so I rarely get a chance to come to a place like this." She flashed me a smile. "It's perfect." And we entered the restaurant.

The waitress led us to a secluded table, (because Shadow took control over her long enough to make her) and after we ordered Sam started a new conversation, in a better mood now that she was sitting in the only vegan café in town. "So what about you? Are you married?"

I was quiet for a moment, wondering about what to say. Yes was out of the question, since then I would make myself unavailable. But no might make her think I was interested in her even after I knew she was married. Of course, I was, but- "No, I'm single. I just can't seem to find the right girl." I avoided looking at her, listening for a reaction.

**Oh wow, I wonder what he would have done if he didn't know I was married! At least he is nice enough not to hit on me. Even though he is handsome- stop it Sam, get a hold of yourself! **Out loud she said, "Really? I'm surprised that you haven't. You're so…" **Charming. It's like he can read my thoughts.** "sweet."

"Thank you. Do you mind if I ask you something?" she shook her head. "What's it like to have children?" before she could ask the question on her mind I added, "You said half of your family didn't eat meat. I assumed your family was bigger than just you and Tu- your husband." I had to be more careful. I couldn't tell her that the reason I knew was because Clockwork had shown me.

**Wow, David is observant.** "I have two kids. A boy and a girl." She shocked me by showing me pictures, something I never would have expected her to do. "We adopted my son, Darius, when he was seven, he's sixteen now, and my daughter Jamie is eight. They're both good kids, but Jamie refuses to eat vegetables, thanks to my husband, and Darius acts mysterious all of the time. But enough about me, I want to know what you do."

I really should have thought about this before hand. Luckily the food came and distracted Sam for a moment. "I'm an amateur ghost hunter." I decided, smiling at the slight irony of my words. "It pays well enough. What do you think about the ghost kid?"

There was a long pause. "He's not an evil ghost. In fact he is one of the few good ones."

"I think a lot of ghosts are good. I only capture the ones who have done something wrong. Something seems strange to me though. I was researching the ghost activity in this town and found out that there was a ghost hero before the one that Amity Park has now. Do you know anything about him?"

**At least someone else remembers Danny as a hero.**** "**Yeah, he was here for a long time. Then for unknown reasons he disappeared." **Danny, why didn't you wake up?** She looked like she was on the verge of tears. I didn't know whether to be happy that she missed me or sad that I had made her cry.

"What about the new ghost that appeared? The red and black one?" I said, trying to change the subject without being obvious. She blinked away her tears and looked up at me. **He changed the subject. Am I that easy to read?**

"He saved a lot of people, so he must not be all bad."

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We finished the meal and paid for our food separately. I wanted to pay for the whole thing, but she refused. Together we left the restaurant and I walked her back to her car. "I've got to get home, Darius is waiting for me to get back so he can stop babysitting Jamie and take his girlfriend to the movies." **Even though she's shallower than Paulina.**

We stood facing each other. "Well, I guess this is goodbye Sam. Maybe we can have lunch together again, if I ever catch you again." It took all of my will power to wave her off and turn around as she got in her car and drove away.

I went back to my apartment and tried to ignore the nagging suspicion in the back of my mind. At last I decided I would have to meet Darius Foley. I knew where he was going to be, and maybe I could succeed where Vlad had failed. Maybe I could turn him against Tucker. And if not it didn't matter. He wasn't really Sam's son anyways.

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**Sam and Tuck's POV**

Sam pulled into her driveway and was just stepping out of the car when Darius ran up to take it. "What took you so long? I'm late!" Without another word he sped off. Sam sighed and entered her home.

Jamie ran up and hugged her. "Hi Mom! Can we have chicken nuggets for dinner? I'll help you make them since you don't like touching them!" Sam nodded and Jamie ran off to the kitchen. Before following Sam paused in front of Tucker's office. It was actually a soundproof room full of high tech equipment. Tucker worked in there almost sixteen hours a day, coming out to eat and sleep. He ran a successful Internet business, and although Sam made enough money for the both of them he worked every day.

Sam hated it. She hated how her kids never even saw their dad, how she never saw him either, and how his stupid male pride made him feel like he needed to bring in the bacon when they had enough already. So even though Tucker was home all of the time someone else would need to baby-sit Jamie. Tucker wouldn't come out of his little room at all, and Jamie would be left to entertain herself, something that Sam refused to let happen.

She pounded vainly on the door, not even getting a response, and went to the kitchen to make the breading for the chicken nuggets while Jamie shaped them. Her mind went back to the man she had met that day, and then she scolded herself. She wasn't going to break up her marriage for anything.


	10. A Date To Crash

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_You never get a second chance to make a good first impression_

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That night I waited at the movie theater. After all of the years it still was the same, and only, one. I silently waited in the lobby, keeping my mind open to thoughts, looking around for Darius. It was hard not to let Shadow block them, but I knew that if I could hear his thoughts I would be able to find him better.

**That movie sucked.** I listened. **I really wish I could get a date.**

**Wow, I loved that movie! And Delia's kissing wasn't half bad either.**I followed this one, remembering that Darius was on a date, until Delia's thoughts came to me. **I hate Fred's guts. How dare he slobber on me like that!**

**Blegh, I feel sick.**

**I've got gum stuck to my butt! Eww!**

**Time to get back to sock sorting...**

**That guy has gum stuck to his butt! Eww!**

**That wasn't worth the ten dollars I paid to get in here.**

There were a lot of thoughts along the same lines. Finally I was going to give up when I heard, **Darius can't resist me! I bet he'd do anything I asked him too.** Followed by, "Darius, would you please buy me some popcorn? Yours was so good, and I forgot to bring any money."

**Yeah, sure. She's hot though, so I guess I should try to keep her happy.** "Okay Starlet, what size do you want?"

I had a lock on his thoughts now. There was something familiar about him, but I couldn't put my finger on it. He had dark hair, almost black, and brown eyes. I tried to be patient, but it was very boring watching them eat popcorn and flirt. Finally they left the theater and went back to Sam's car.

**I wonder if I could get him to come into my room with me? He'd get his hopes up, like the other boys, and I'll kiss him and tell him I love him and kick him out.** Starlet mentally laughed, and I felt a little pity for Darius. What made him fall for that psycho?

They drove to the girl's house, and both of them got out of the car. "Want to come in? My parents won't be home for hours."

Darius smiled politely and said, "Unfortunately my parents expect me home." He turned to leave when Starlet grabbed his hand and pulled him into a kiss.

Jealousy flooded through me, and I looked away. It occurred to me that I had never had a real kiss, just fake-out make-outs, and I wanted nothing more than to break up their embrace. "Shadow," I whispered, "Do me a favor and ruin this moment."

"Gladly." It said, slipping away and positioning itself so that Darius would see it when he opened his eyes. Suddenly Darius shuddered and his eyes focused on Shadow as he slipped into the darkness around the side of the house.

"Wait here." He said, pulling an ectogun from his pocket and chasing after Shadow. The girlfriend shrugged and went back to the car. I floated down, phased through the roof, and sat invisibly behind her.

**He probably has to get over the shock of the fact that I let him kiss me. 'His parents expect him home!' What garbage. He was chickening out. We'll see how he feels after another kiss.** I rolled my eyes and pinched a nerve in her neck, a trick I had seen my mom do once or twice, and she passed out. Without a second thought I picked her up and phased her into the car's trunk. At least then she wouldn't be able to torment Darius.

That was my job now.

"_He's coming!"_ Shadow screamed at me. "_Do you have a plan?"_ It sounded panicked.

I told it to meet me inside. I left the car and entered the house, leaving the door open and turning the lights on. Shadow came back to me, but I told him to do one more thing. Outside I could hear Darius calling his girlfriend's name, and then he entered the house. I turned invisible and waited. When he entered the room I was in Shadow happily killed the lights, and we were plunged into darkness.

"Starlet?" he asked, looking around. I raised my hands in the air and created a glowing orb that illuminated the whole room, becoming visible at the same time. Darius' face went between surprise and anger. I didn't like having to act evil, but it was too late for that now. It was what he expected.

"Not quite, Darius."

"Where's Starlet? What have you done to her?"

"She's in the trunk of your car, sleeping. I wanted to talk to you, and she's too shallow for you anyways."

He raised his gun and pointed it at me. "Don't give me that crap, I recognize you. You're the new ghost in town who ran from Phantom."

"Phantom?" I said, keeping the anger out of my voice, even though it was threatening to overwhelm me. "Really? Put the gun down, before I force you to." Shadow slipped away from me again and was slowly nearing Darius. "Trust me, it's better for you." He kept the gun pointed at my forehead, and Shadow wrapped himself around Darius, making him drop his weapon. "Told you."

**Stupid ghost.** Shadow suddenly screamed in pain and recoiled from Darius. A bright flash of light blinded me for a moment, and the ghost boy was standing where Darius had been. I should have known. Darius took my surprise to his advantage and dived at me, forcing me to the ground, and held an ectobeam to my head. "Who are you?" he yelled.

Instead of answering I smirked and phased through the floor. It was like fighting Vlad again. Except this time I was the evil one. Darius looked around, and I dropped on him from above, knocking him to the ground with my feet. "Does that really matter? To you I'm just another enemy to defeat." I blasted him down as he was trying to get up. "It doesn't mean anything that I saved people, that's your job now, right?" I glared at him, and lifted him up by his jacket. "In your mind you're the hero, and I'm the villain. Everyone seems to want that now."

He met my gaze and held it. "You're insane." He said simply. **Wow he's a messed up ghost!** "I'm obviously the good guy here, just like the Phantom before me."

I tightened my grip on him and hissed, "So what happened to the first Phantom? The one whose name you stole?"

The kid looked surprised again. "He's…" Darius trailed off into silence.

"I'll tell you what happened to him. He's dead. Your father killed him twelve years ago. Still think you fight on the good side? Phantom was a hero. You're just an imitation, a copycat who thinks good will always triumph over evil." I drew our faces closer and saw my red eyes reflected in his pupils. "And you're wrong."

"Liar!" he yelled, breaking out of my grasp. I turned intangible as he tried to punch me and Shadow followed another of my orders. He touched the television, causing it to suddenly explode. Darius was launched through the wall and out onto the driveway. I floated over him, glaring down at his now human form. He realized I was there and mumbled, "Who are you?" again.

Vlad had made several mistakes over his lifetime. One of his worst was telling me that he was half ghost too, thinking I would join him if I knew. Obviously that doesn't work. He couldn't reveal my ghost half without me revealing his. Then an idea came into my head. "I am the ghost who all will fear in time. The ultimate enemy. Tell your father I'm back for him." Shadow joined me and I left Darius to fend for himself. Things had just become a lot more interesting.

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**Sam and Tuck's POV**

"Phantom was very brave, and even though he knew he might not come back he got into the battle suit and looked down at Sally and Trent. 'We knew it wasn't going to be as easy as stuffing the box ghost inside the Fenton thermos.' He said, smiling. 'Guys, I'll be back. But… if there's anything you want to say to me…' Sally wanted to tell him how much she loved him, but then the ghost king's face appeared in the sky, and Phantom knew he had to fly up and save the town."

"Mean old ghost king." Jamie said, looking up at Sam. "Sally was so close to telling Phantom how she felt!" Sam smiled at her daughter. This was how it went almost every night. She would tell her daughter a story about Danny, switching her name to Sally and Tuck's to Trent. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Darius straining to hear her from his room, as he did every night, and she continued a little louder.

"Then Phantom was in the ghost zone, fighting thousands of ghost skeletons. Sally and Trent knew they had to help, and brought all of the other ghosts to help Phantom. The good ghosts were winning! And Phantom made it into the castle where the ghost king was waiting. They battled fiercely, and using all of his powers Phantom was able to push Pariah Dark into his sarcophagus. The town went back to earth, and everyone cheered, knowing that Phantom had saved the day."

"Yay Phantom!" Jamie shouted, hugging Sam and then yawning. "Mom, will Sally and Phantom ever realize that they like each other?"

Sam's throat tightened. "That's another story kid. Time for bed." She left Jamie's room and entered Darius'. Her son was sitting on his bed, acting like he hadn't heard anything.

"Need a story Darius?" she said, smiling at him. He had come home late from the movies hiding bruises. Sam knew he was doing that instantly, because she had seen Danny do the same thing so many times, but she couldn't think of an explanation for Darius' injuries. He looked at her for a moment, clearly thinking about something.

"Maybe. Mom, what happened to Phantom? Why isn't he around anymore? Ghost's live forever, right? And I know Phantom is more than a story, I've heard about him on the news." For the second time Sam's emotions threatened to overwhelm her.

"He's still around, fighting ghosts somewhere. But Amity Park was safe when he left. He thought it would stay that way. Maybe he'll come back someday, to save the town again. But the new Phantom is doing just fine now."

Darius smiled, remembering what Jamie had said, a question he had often wondered himself throughout his days of first listening to the stories directly from his mom, with Jamie, and then from his room, since he was too old for bedtime tales. "And then Sally and the old Phantom can finally fall in love." Sam had to turn away from her son to hide her emotions, pretending to leave, but Darius called her back. "Wait, Mom, I have one more question." Sam turned around, hoping her eyes were dry. "Who is the ultimate enemy?"

Sam's eyes darkened. "The worst enemy in the world, the ultimate enemy, is the evil within yourself."

"Um, what does that have to do with Phantom?" Darius said, not impressed by the chill in Sam's voice or her dark words.

"Phantom had to fight his ultimate enemy when he was only fourteen. It was the most horrible ghost in the world. His name was Dark Phantom, or Dan Phantom, because he was Danny Phantom's evil future self. He was created when Phantom's ghost mixed with Plasmius. Dan destroyed the world and every one on it, and Danny was going to end up the same, except a ghost named Clockwork stopped that from happening. He sent Danny to the future, and eventually he beat Dan and trapped him in a thermos that Clockwork kept. He's still in there today."

Sam had shortened the story, because she hadn't told her kids that Danny was a half ghost, and she wanted very badly to leave. Darius looked a little scared though. "Are you alright Darius?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Goodnight mom." Sam left Darius, and the boy stared up at the ceiling, hoping against hope that the ghost he had met today hadn't really been the infamous Dan Phantom.


	11. Hero And Villain

**_Okay, this chapter doesn't have an end scene like the last few, where it shows Darius and his family, because it was a little anticlimatic. It will probably be at the beginning of the next chapter. Oh, and if you're squemish, have fun reading the end of this..._**

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_He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you_.

Friedrich Nietzsche

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It was getting increasingly hard for me to spend my days wandering around Amity Park. One reason was that since I knew where Sam worked I could easily visit her, and wanted to very badly. But after all, she was married, and I had to be careful about how I acted.

The second reason was the ghost attacks. They happened frequently, and often I was near enough to hear the victims screaming. I had to grit my teeth and continue walking, going against four years of heroism. Darius would save them, I knew that, but it always seemed like he couldn't get there fast enough. Besides, they didn't deserve to be rescued by me, a murderer, who has the blood of two on his hands.

Sometimes I would cover my ears, not caring what anyone thought. And then sometimes Shadow couldn't block their panicked thoughts from entering my head. **Someone, anyone, help me please!** **I don't want to die!** **No! Don't kill me!**Their internal shrieks of pain echoing around me, driving me insane. Somehow I'd keep walking, hands on my ears, wishing they would be saved or die and stop screaming.

It was always like this, until once a voice I recognized penetrated Shadow's barrier. **Why did I pick today to leave my ectogun at home? This ghost is hurting innocent people!** A familiar scream echoed through my head. **Help! Please! … Danny… Please…** I stopped, frozen where I was. The ghost had Sam, and Sam had called for me. My legs began to work again and I sprinted into a side street, and transformed.

I flew back towards the scene, towards the enormous ghost that was holding Sam hostage. It was huge, an ugly monster with sharp talons wrapped around her. My hands balled into fists and I launched a red ectoblast at it, using more power than I should have. The ghost looked at the blast, but couldn't avoid it. Instead of knocking the ghost aside, like I thought it would, the blast collided with its face and the ghost began to disintegrate.

At first I floated in place, too stunned to do anything. Then I saw the fist that held Sam began to vanish, and sped forward, catching her just as she began to fall. She had her hands behind my back and her face in my shoulder, and I pulled her closer to me, for once forgetting the blood on my hands. Sam looked up into my red eyes, silently studying my appearance. "Danny?" she whispered.

I looked away from her, suddenly remembering the evil I had done, and shook my head no. We began to descend, and as soon as my feet touched the ground she let go of me and took a few steps back, looking unsure about what to do. I looked at her again, turned, and was about to fly away when she put her hand on my shoulder. "Then who are you?"

She walked in front of me and I stared at the ground. "I am no one who you should know. I have stolen from people, I have abandoned the innocent-"

"You didn't abandon me." Sam said, cutting me off.

"And I have murdered. I don't want you to know me, I don't want to stain you with blood. I… I'm sorry I interfered." Her hand dropped, and I floated off of the ground.

"Thank you for saving me." She said, and I go back and hug her, kiss her, thank her for being so trusting. But I couldn't. Instead I turned invisible and flew away, soaring through the sky until I found a place to land and change back.

Once I was back to normal Shadow spoke up. "_Why didn't you read her thoughts?'_

"I didn't want to. I shouldn't have saved her, and reading her mind would only have made it harder for me to lie."

"_So it's alright to listen to her mind as David but not as a ghost?'_

"Yes. My ghost half is the one who killed Vlad and Valerie, not me." Shadow made a sound in between a scoff and a groan, but didn't say anything more. I stepped out onto the main street and found it swarming with people. Then I heard Sam's voice ringing out, "Leave me alone! The ghost didn't say anything to me when he rescued me, I don't know who he is, and you should all be ashamed of yourselves for trying to turn this into a news story!"

I shoved my way through the crowd, getting closer to the circle of reporters around Sam. "Miss, why do you think this ghost chose to save you when he hasn't saved anyone else?" Sam tossed him a death glare and told him that she had no clue. "Do you know if this ghost is connected to Danny Phantom, the ghost boy who vanished twelve years ago?"

Sam didn't answer for a moment. "No. Danny Phantom had an emblem, a white D with a black P inside. He would never get rid of it." She sounded sincere, and I instantly felt guilty for hiding it. But I didn't want her to recognize me. "Now leave me alone!" She shoved past the reporters and walked into me. "What is your problem?" Sam said, before looking up and realizing who I was. "Oh, sorry David."

"Come on, I'll help you get out of this." I began to shove my way back through the crowd, making a path for Sam to follow. Finally the amount of people began to lessen, and we were able to walk side by side. "What was going on back there?" I asked, opening my mind to receive her thoughts.

**He honestly doesn't already know?** "A monster attacked me, and a ghost saved me. Not the usual one, the one in black and red. He left after he did, and then reporters swarmed me asking me to tell them everything about him when I'd just met him." **Even though he did tell me more than I told the reporters. I really hope David doesn't ask me anything.**

"So you were right after all, he wasn't all bad." Sam looked surprised. "I mean, he saved you." It was so strange talking to Sam and acting like a completely different person. I was getting good at lying.

"You're not going to ask me anything?" **Wow, that's really sweet that he remembers what I said.**

"No, I figured the reporters gave you enough trouble. Unless you want me to ask you something?"

"Thanks, but you're right, the reporters asked enough questions." She glanced down at her watch. "It's that late? I've got to get home, my husband won't come out of his office for anything and Jamie's going to get home from school soon. I don't want her to come home to a practically empty house." I knew that she wasn't just making excuses, and we went our separate ways.

I went back to the crowd, for lack of anything better to do, and sensed someone watching me. The feeling had happened before, and had steadily been growing stronger, but I never could tell who it was. It made me nervous though, so I turned away and walked towards a more secluded street. I glanced around, trying to look casual, and since no one was there I changed into my ghost form and teleported back to my apartment.

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"Do you think this is a game Daniel? Switching from hero to villain when you feel like it? Killing those who get in your way while putting on a nice face for the public to see?"

"What about all those promises you made to me Danny? About how you would be a hero no matter what? When will Sam become something you're tired of? Will you murder her like you did me?"

I stared in horror at the pair. Their dead eyes bored into mine, and I couldn't look away when I desperately needed to. Why had they come back to torture me? To haunt me? My body seemed to act without me and it said, "You're dead."

Vlad's cruel laugh was like ice in me veins. My attention was drawn to his face, aged a hundred years, rotting and full of maggots writhing just below the pale flesh. His silver hair was almost all gone, having fallen out in clumps- the only part that seemed alive were the black eyes, glaring at me from sockets that were about to fall in. "Death, like everything else, is just another obstacle to defeat."

Next to him was Valerie Grey, but only I would know it. Her skin was shriveled and black, her hair nonexistent, the gaping hole in her chest staring at me like a third tormentor- she looked exactly like she had when I made her that way weeks ago. Decay had not affected her, there was nothing to rot. Valerie's eyes, like Vlad's, were black and full of sinister thoughts flickering just beneath the surface.

Thoughts! Why couldn't I read theirs? In fact, where was Shadow? I tried to follow the connection we had, but only felt a strange emptiness. Valerie answered me now. "Your powers don't work on us Danny, besides, we're not here to hurt you. Physically." She grinned, a black gummed toothless smirk, because her teeth had fallen out since they had nothing to hold them in.

They came towards me, and I tried to step back only to realize that I was in a corner. I tried to phase through, but my powers wouldn't come. Their disfigured forms came closer and I began to shake in terror. Then they did something I didn't expect. Each of them grabbed one of my wrists, Vlad the left, and Valerie the right.

"Daniel," Vlad whispered, almost kindly, "You killed me unintentionally, blasting me once and forcing me to change back into my human form, and then you stood over me as I struggled to fill my lungs with air and failed. After that you fled, and assured yourself that it was all your ghost form's fault. An instinct, a reflex perhaps. But of course you know that your ghost form and your human form are not any different at all, that either way you really are just the little brat Daniel Fenton."

It was Valerie's turn now. "You weren't planning to kill me, but you let your anger get the best of you, Danny. I enraged you, made you remember the past, and you took out your fury on me." She moved my hand as if I wasn't resisting at all, placing it into the hole in her body. "Remember this Danny? You ripped into me and put your hand around my heart, before forming an ectoblast and burning me up from the inside out. All because I didn't love you." She stood on her toes and placed her empty mouth against mine, her lips caving in with no teeth to hold them up. A shudder ran through me and I felt her death spread in me.

They released me and I looked down at my hands, wondering what they had done. Then it became horribly clear. Blood spread from where they had touched my wrists, covering my palms and dripping from my fingers. I tried to wipe it off, stop the terrible red liquid, but I couldn't, it just kept coming. I looked up at me torturers, both who now seemed impossibly tall, and saw them laughing wickedly.

"Don't you get it Danny? You can't be evil and good. And it's too late to choose. You have our deaths on your hands."

"Whether or not you choose to admit it, you killed us both, not your ghost half. Do you really think dear Samantha should be rescued by a murderer?"

And then Sam was there, covered in bloody handprints, and she opened her mouth and began to scream.

My eyes snapped open and I sat up covered in cold sweat. It had been a nightmare. I scanned the room and looked down at my hands, imagining the blood, and spent the rest of the night lying awake.


	12. Insanity

**Woo! Six pages! The quote is from a song, used differently than 2wingo expected. Sorry 2wingo! I'll be on a trip starting the 16****th****, so I won't really have time to update. I'll see what I can manage though.**

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_"It's so deadly my dear, the power of having you near." _**Sheryl Crow**

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Shadow said nothing about my nightmare. I was glad; I didn't want to think about it. But every time I was in my ghost form it was impossible not to notice how blood and my gloves were exactly the same color.

Amity Park at night was almost a completely different place. Few people wandered around, I could even land and walk on the sidewalk if I felt like it. I had always liked the dark, even all of those years ago when I was a hero. I didn't have to hide, so I could fly out in the open and not worry about the public eye.

I stood on the edge of a tall building, transfixed by the city's lights. It was perfect up here, beautiful and silent. The feeling of being watched, which had gotten much worse since the nightmare, was gone for once. I would have stood there all night, when a scream reached my ears. Instinctively I waited for my ghost sense to go off. It never did. I looked down and knew why. A man was being mugged.

_'So what are you going to do?'_ Shadow asked me.

"Nothing is going to happen anyway. As long as he hands over the money he should be fine." But I asked Shadow to let their thoughts through.

**I can't believe this guy is mugging me! Help, someone, anyone! Where's Phantom when you need him?** I jumped off of the building and floated closer. I could hear what they were saying now.

"Give me your wallet! Don't make me shoot!" The mugger was waving a gun.

"Here, just please, don't shoot me!" The man handed over his wallet and put his hands up.

**I'm going to kill him anyways. I don't like his face.** I appeared out of thin air and both men turned to stare at me. My feet touched the ground and I took a step forward. The man was innocent, and I wasn't going to let him get killed. Suddenly two figures appeared in front of me, freezing me to the spot. Their dead black eyes stared into mine, and I barely heard Shadow say, "What's wrong?"

"No way." I said, backing up. "This is a dream." They said nothing, only watched.

**BANG**

They turned and moved out of the way. I was now able to see the victim's body get knocked backwards by the force of the bullet and fall towards the ground. The mugger glanced at me, muttered, "Freak" and ran away. Now the pair looked back at me.

"What do you want?" I asked them. The nightmare visions were still silent, but now they looked smug.

_'Who are you talking too? No one is there except for the corpse."_

"Vlad and Valerie are standing right in front of me!" Now they were both smirking.

_'No they are not. No one is in front of us.'_ Suddenly they vanished. I looked around, and my eyes fell on the victim. My feet seemed to move by themselves. I walked over to him and avoided meeting his still open eyes. A door opened nearby, and then I heard a woman's voice.

"What's going on?" Then she saw me standing next to the body and screamed. I teleported away before anything else could happen. Again I was on top of the building, this time watching a different scene. The woman stood screaming until another man came out. Together they approached the victim, and the woman's frantic voice easily reached my ears.

"A ghost, the ghost, the one on the news, it was here, and it killed him, it killed this man! The Dark Ghost, the mysterious one, I came out here when I heard a gunshot, and the ghost was standing over the man. Then it disappeared!"

I stayed where I was. Maybe it was better if the press finally decided I was a murderer. Still, I should tell them what happened, even if they didn't believe me, so that the real killer could be tracked down. I positioned myself on then edge of the building, invisible, and prepared to jump when I felt eyes on my back. My ghost sense didn't go off.

Shadow said no one was behind us, and asked what was wrong with me. I turned, fearing the worst, and quickly received it. Vlad and Valerie were watching me, following me with their eyes even though I was invisible. I tried to read their thoughts, and just like my dream nothing happened. Panic filled me. "What are you?"

There was no reply except for the sounds of sirens. They walked past me to the ledge, and jumped off. I ran over and looked down. They were nowhere. Police cars were speeding down the street towards the victim. I sprang from the roof, flying away before I attracted any more attention.

I landed a mile or so away. '_Who do you keep talking to that I can't see?'_ Shadow said. My ghost sense went off.

"I'll have to tell you later." I said, turning invisible and watching for the ghost. It was a nice distraction from what had just happened. But just as I was considering going after the ghost for old times sake two familiar faces appeared. My muscles tightened as I stared at them, and Shadow noticed.

'_What now?"_

I said nothing back; the corpses were holding all of my attention. Then they turned and began to fly away instead of just vanishing. "Stop!" I yelled, flying after them. Shadow was trying to talk to me, but I ignored it and flew after the two. "Why are you haunting me?!" They kept going, and I never seemed to get any closer.

Finally they stopped. We were floating over the only bridge in Amity, a large traffic bridge that went over the river. "What do you want?" They seemed to laugh at me. I couldn't help it anymore; I sent a blast towards Vlad's rotting face.

It went right through him, destroying a support beam. I blinked and fired more blasts, but every single one seemed to go through them. _"Finally!"_ Shadow said, somehow still reaching me through my fury, _"Destruction!"_ I couldn't stop, Vlad and Valerie really were laughing now, silent to anyone's ears but mine.

I let out a feral scream and unleashed all of my powers on them. Red colored the night, all of the beams hitting them but not harming them. They weren't even dodging. Shards of ice passed through their insubstantial forms, and still I continued, trying to kill them again any way I could manage. Finally I took a deep breath and created the most powerful ghostly wail I had ever made. It seemed to last forever, and it only ended when I had to gasp for breath.

And still they were floating there. I looked around me at the destruction I had caused. The entire bridge had collapsed into the river, taking with it any cars that happened to be on it. The river itself was full of ice spears, stabbing anyone who managed to escape their twisted vehicles. This was impossible. I had caused all of this in my insanity, fighting these figures that didn't exist out of my own mind. I had killed far more than two now.

My body registered the blast before my brain did. I was suddenly falling towards the bloody water below, and I caught myself just in time. I spun around in the air, expecting Vlad or Valerie, even though I knew they couldn't hurt me, and was shocked to find Darius holding a green ectobeam.

"I should have known it was you. What is your problem? Why do you have to make things harder for me? It's past midnight, I have school tomorrow, and the sirens from your murder scene woke me up. How could you do this? Kill so many? But I guess you're just a ghost, devoid of human emotion." He tried to attack, but I dodged, anticipating all of his attacks thanks to my mind reading skill. I grabbed his arm and pulled it behind him, hissing into his ear-

"Devoid of emotion? I can still feel hatred. Fury." I began to burn him, and he tightened in my grip. "Betrayal. Jealousy. I still crave the love of a woman, her embrace. The fact that I'm a ghost changes none of that." He gasped and I could feel him trying to escape. "It just gives me the means to achieve what I was deprived of in life." Now I froze his arms under my hands, the ice spreading up to his mouth and nose. I shaped it, forcing it inside him, suffocating him.

Then I let go. He spiraled towards the water, unable to fly. Then he broke free, shattering the ice and panting for air. He floated back up to my level. "Why me though? Why are you picking on me? I didn't do anything wrong." Darius tried to punch me. I blasted him down again.

I glared at him, hearing Tucker in his voice. It was all Tucker's fault. It was his fault I was being driven insane by hallucinations. His fault I was like this. My fury burned and my voice almost wasn't my own. "Circles. History's full of them. Time and again the same situations cycle around. I am simply fulfilling my destiny."

Again he tried to blast me and I avoided the beam. "Your father killed me. I am like this because of him, and I've come to exact my revenge. What other way to cause him pain is more effective than to kill the children he loves? Even if you are adopted."

Before he could react I grabbed him and punched his stomach. It felt good to be fighting something that tried to fight back. I savored the sounds of his pain, the way his arm felt in mine when I snapped it in two. I sent blasts through his body, jerking him back into consciousness when he was about to pass out. I drove ice into his skin, barely hearing the screams over the blood pounding in my ears.

My fists made contact again and again. I ripped at him with my hands, not even bothering to use my powers now. He jerked and tried to get away, but I drew him closer and this time snapped his wrist. Still he struggled. I began to tear away his skin, more animal than ghost now. This was for the pain Tucker had given me. For the murders he has driven me to commit. This was for stealing Sam.

Finally he went limp in my arms, and my blasts didn't wake him. His chest rose and fell unevenly and blood poured from his wounds. I grabbed his hair and yanked his head up so I could look at it. Darius looked nothing like his father or mother. With his eyes closed he almost looked like I did. The similarity in his pale face and mine stunned me. Blood flowed freely from his broken nose.

Did Sam notice it too? Did she notice that Darius looked like me? I let go of his hair, letting his head fall back onto my arm. How would Sam react to the death of her son? Adrenaline was still rushing through my veins, and I floated in midair, unsure of what to do. I didn't regret hurting him. But I couldn't kill him. I would let him live. For Sam.

"Shadow. Change me back. Into my old costume. Just in case he wakes up." Shadow obeyed. I flew to the house I had passed frequently at night. The place I vowed never to stop at until I had wooed Sam enough as David Parks. I set Darius down on the doorstep as carefully as I could manage. Then I stared at the door. The boy began to move, and muttered something. I sighed, pounded on the door as loudly as I could, and teleported back to my apartment.

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**Sam and Tuck**

Sam was mad. Furious, actually. Darius was missing. She had been in the basement, messing with some invention or other when mother's intuition told her to check on her son. She walked upstairs and peeked into his room. There was a shape in the bed, but it looked strange. Sam pulled back the covers and found nothing but pillows.

She had gone around the house calling his name, happy that Jamie at least was at a friend's house and she didn't have to worry about waking her up. He was nowhere. It was one in the morning.

Frantically Sam began banging on Tucker's door. She had heard sirens earlier. Sam called Tucker's name over and over. A hand touched her shoulder and she turned around prepared to deck whoever it was.

Tucker was standing there looking shocked. He had a pair of headphones covering his ears and a sandwich in his hand. "Something wrong Sam?" She didn't lower her fist. Tucker took off his headphones and said, "You look mad."

"You were in the kitchen the whole time, and you didn't hear me calling you?"

"Sorry, I was listening to music. I thought it was part of the song." He took a bite of his sandwich, not grasping how mad Sam was.

"Your name, Tucker? You thought your name was part of a song?! It never occurred to you to take off your stupid headphones?" It was always like this. They didn't have pet names for one another. It was like the old days when the only reason they were friends was because of Danny. Now they were married and Danny wasn't around.

"Okay, it was stupid of me! What did you need me so bad for anyways?"

"Darius is missing." Sam said. "His window is closed. If you ever came out of your office you might have seen him sneak out. But like always you miss everything."

Tucker shrugged and was about to take another bite out of his sandwich, but decided against it and set it down on a shelf at a look from Sam. "So? You and I snuck out all of the time when we were his age."

"When we were his age Amity Park wasn't a city. When we were his age we snuck out to help Danny fight crime. Danny's not around to save anyone now; he's up rotting in a hospital! Darius isn't like Danny; he has no reason to sneak out!"

"Why do you need to bring Danny into everything? It isn't about him! Yes we snuck out to fight ghosts, but you're forgetting that the new ghost kid is around to save people. Heck, he could even be Darius. But I'm tired of you reminding me about Danny. He's been in a coma for twelve years. Time to move on."

"Just because you've given up doesn't mean I have to. You'd never know, but I tell Darius and Jamie stories about him every night. They idolize him. He's more of a father to them than you are, locking yourself in your room and playing with a computer every day."

Now Tucker was mad. "So what's going to happen if Danny comes back? Are we just going to be friends again like the old days? Running around fighting ghosts? Just going to ignore the past twelve years and go back to being teens? Happily ever after for the three of us?"

"Ignoring the past is better than blocking out the present!" Sam yelled, stung by Tucker's remark. "I'm surprised you even know your children's names! The only thing you did that was at all beneficial for our kids was to help conceive them!"

"I work Sam! I bring money home! You spend your time recreating the Fenton's inventions that were destroyed in the explosion!"

"Work! How can sitting in a chair staring at a computer screen be called work? I am rich remember? You should stop boosting your ego and start paying attention in your kids lives!"

Now Tucker was really mad. He didn't want to bring this up with Sam, but it just slipped out. "You're not much better! Who was that man who you left with after the ghost attacked you? On the news you acted like he was an old friend. And speaking of ghosts, you were hugging the one that saved you pretty tightly. Is he an old friend too, or does he just remind you of Danny?"

Sam opened and closed her mouth. Tucker was more observant than she thought. "No. David Parks is just a man who was kind enough to get me away from the reporters. I've never met him before. And the ghost didn't say anything. He-" She was cut off by the sound of pounding on the front door. Together she and Tucker went over to answer it, wondering who it could be this late at night.

She opened the door and felt her heart stop. There, blood flowing from countless injuries, was Darius. He tried to sit up but could only whimper in pain. "The ultimate enemy…" he was barely able to say. "Dan Phantom… He's going to kill Dad…"


	13. Thoughts Of The Wounded

**_Shorter chapter than the last few. To some of you readers it's disapointing, more focused on Sam and Darius than Danny. You don't even have to read this chapter. But you might like it. I can't tell you now can I? This is the last update I'll be able to post before my trip. Enjoy!_**

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_You are today where your thoughts have brought you: you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you._

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I was lying in my bed staring at the ceiling when I heard the ambulance pass. Was it the one carrying Darius? Or perhaps someone who had survived the bridge collapsing? How many people had been injured tonight? Just because I existed? A hybrid, a mutt, a being that shouldn't have lived at all. I was even still in my ghost form, too ashamed of myself to change back into my human form.

It was clear that I was insane. Even in this room I could feel Vlad and Valerie watching me. They hadn't shown themselves. Why was it that I knew they were all in my head, but I couldn't ignore them? Shadow had left me alone, probably flying around the city enjoying the chaos.

Why was it that now I enjoyed the pain of others? That now I could kill without remorse, almost end a child's life? Why am I like that now, when I had started out as a hero what felt like a lifetime ago? Was all of it because of my best friends betraying me? Abandoning me for the blackness of death while they lived? Or was there more too it? I was half ghost. Half dead. Maybe I was slowly dying. Becoming more dead and more evil. If I had been awake, if I had lived those twelve years, would things have turned out differently? Or was I destined to be crazy and evil either way?

I almost didn't know why I was doing this anymore. Putting up an act. I was obsessed with Sam now. Tricking her into liking me, while planning to kill Tucker. It was too late to stop. Too late to turn around and run away again.

Still focusing on the ceiling, I changed back into my human form, and a wave of exhaustion flooded over me. I fell into a dreamless sleep, my last thought being of Sam's face.

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**Sam and Tuck's POV**

Sam stared at her son's sleeping face. Tucker had gone home, promising to take care of Jamie, and Sam was left alone with Darius. Her face was completely absent of makeup, because she had been unable to stop herself from crying and wanted to be able to wipe away the tears without leaving mascara everywhere.

After Darius had spoken he had passed out, and an ambulance had been called. Sam had sat next to Tucker on the way to the hospital in a state of shock. The past had come back to haunt her. Dan Phantom had somehow escaped Clockwork. She couldn't figure out why he was after Tucker though. Maybe because he wanted to find out where Danny was, and use her and Tuck as bait.

Since then her son had been unconscious. She wanted to ask him more questions, but the doctors had kept him drugged. Again Sam's eyes traced his face. How often had she done the same with Danny? She had sat beside his hospital bed talking to him for hours, begging him to wake up, begging him to come back to her. When no one else was in the room she'd whisper to him that she loved him unconditionally. She told him all of the things she had kept inside for years, and held his hand in hers, hoping the contact would bring him to her.

But it never did. He had remained comatose. Meanwhile Tucker was there for her. Comforting her, holding her, listening to her. When he proposed she had agreed, because she didn't want to lose him like she had lost Danny. They clung together, their marriage a strange reminder of the past. But then Tucker barricaded himself behind soundproof walls, leaving Sam alone again. Terribly alone.

She hadn't visited Danny for a few years. Guilt had kept her away. She felt as though she had betrayed him, promising love and then marrying Tucker. And what good would it do her anyways, to see his practically lifeless body again? He was in a different hospital than the one she was sitting in now, but it felt the same. The boy in front of her could easily have been Danny, his brown eyes being the only major difference.

He sighed and opened his eyes. Sam's breath caught in her throat, so lost in her thoughts she almost imagined it was Danny waking up. Darius' dark eyes soon dispelled that fantasy though. "Hi Mom." He said quietly.

"Hi Darius."

Darius shifted, wincing in pain. "I guess you want me to tell you what happened."

"I can wait. Don't strain yourself. The doctors said you wouldn't be awake for another few hours, so you might be a little dizzy."

"I'm sorry Mom. I had snuck out to meet some friends, but a ghost ambushed me and attacked me. He said he was the ultimate enemy and left me like this."

Sam sighed, recognizing the lie. There was no way Darius could have made it home on his own. She didn't pursue it though. If he wanted to lie, he could lie. "I'm just amazed you're awake. Do you want anything? I know hospital food isn't the best, but it's all we've got to pick from right now. They serve salad, I think." Darius wasn't a vegetarian or a carnivore like his parents, another trait that made Sam think of her old friend.

"Sure. Thanks." He managed a smile, and she left the room.

Now that his mom was gone Darius closed his eyes and began to think. How would his mom react when she found out that the ghost that had almost killed him was the same one that saved her? That confused Darius. Why had the ghost saved his mom and killed everyone else?

His drugged mind began to bring back last night's events too. Darius' eyes snapped open as he realized something. He had been saved by someone. The ghost he had been fighting was going to kill him, and was very close to it too. Darius remembered passing out, believing that he was going to die, and then he regained consciousness, and saw a different face.

Darius had been awake for most of the trip back home. He had kept his eyes almost completely closed, trying to be silent and hide that he was awake. His rescuer was wearing black and white, and through the slits of Darius' eyes he remembered the outline of a symbol that he couldn't read without giving away the fact he was conscious.

He remembered the eyes most of all. They were strange, flickering between red and green. Soon they were at Darius' house, and the ghost set him down carefully, trying not to make Darius hurt more. Now Darius was able to get a good look at him. He was tall, and the symbol was a white D with a black P inside of it. He had white hair, and his eyes were back to red.

Darius tried to ask what was going on. The ghost looked down at him, then at the door. Then the ghost knocked loudly on the door and vanished.

His parent's had come out next, and by that time Darius was frantic to tell them what happened before he passed out again. But now that he had time to think about what had happened he was mystified. His mom came back, placed a salad on the table next to him, and then sat in the chair opposite his bed.

Darius said the first thing that came to mind. "Mom, what did the old Phantom look like? You never told us."

Sam nearly choked on her salad. She had avoided that because her heart ached when she remembered his face. But she couldn't say no. "He was handsome. Phantom wore a black and white jumpsuit, white collar, gloves, belt, and boots. He also had a white symbol on is chest, a white D with a black P, that I- er, Sally, made for him. His hair was white too, and his eyes were green. Why do you ask?"

"No reason." He said. Darius was too shocked to make up an excuse. Danny Phantom had saved him. The hero of his bedtime stories, his role model, the original ghost boy- Darius couldn't believe it. Danny Phantom must have fought off the other ghost and taken Darius home.

Sam stared at her son, wondering what he was thinking about. Her eyes were drawn to the bandages all over him, the cast on his left arm, the cotton holding his broken nose in place. If only Danny had been around to save him.


	14. Bed Time Stories

_**Yay! Thank you all for supporting this story. Special thanks to mutantlover09 For giving me the main idea of this chapter, and 2wingo for the end piece idea! Woo!**_

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_He who tells stories rules the world. _American Indian Proverb

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I covered my head with my pillow. Shadow still hadn't returned, and the thoughts of the other people in the building were tormenting me. A family of five lived below me. Even in their minds they argued with each other. It had been a day since I had fought Darius. A day since Shadow left.

**I hate it! I hate my brother so much! He's such an immature brat!**

**My sister is so stuck up. I wish she'd disappear.**

**Maybe if I wish hard enough both of my siblings will curl up and die.**

This was too much. I had to find Shadow. Or at least get out of range of their thoughts. I changed into my ghost form and was about to jump out the window when I saw my glowing reflection in the glass. White hair. White gloves. The familiar emblem was back too. Shadow never changed me back. I was Danny Phantom again.

**Noisy kids… maybe I can ditch them with the guy upstairs. He seems to have plenty of free time.**

I groaned and looked outside. It was almost dark. If I stayed invisible I would be fine. Shadow was definitely going to need a good excuse. I dove through the window and flew straight up, slowly getting farther and farther away from the other voices. I sighed in relief, and watched as the lights began to come on in the city.

"_Shadow!" _I called mentally, not really expecting an answer. Again I looked at Amity Park below me. There were an infinite amount of places he could have been. He _really_ had better have an amazing reason for this. I flew lower, flying just over the buildings, waiting for my ghost sense to go off.

Finally it did. I stopped and looked around, calling Shadow again. Instead I heard, **Just what I didn't need, a ghost attack.** Darius. I stayed invisible and noticed for the first time that I was floating over a hospital. Darius appeared, looking like he was in intense pain. "Show yourself!" he yelled. "I'm not in the mood to play nice today."

"You don't look like you'd be able to do anything at all." Even my voice sounded different. I became visible, watching his face register anger, then shock.

Darius said nothing, too stunned. His mind though, was full of things to say. **It's Danny Phantom! He's back! He saved me last night, and now he's back! How did he beat that ghost? The ultimate enemy? He beat him before though, so I guess it makes sensed…**

"I think it would be best if you went back to your hospital room." I turned to fly away.

"Wait! Phantom!" I turned back. "Can we talk?" Vlad and Valerie instantly appeared in front of me, their faces even more ugly than before. I gritted my teeth and walked through them, feeling nothing but still shuddering as their eyes stared at me.

"Sorry. I'm looking for someone. And it's best if I don't stay in one place for too long."

"Why?" I tried not to smirk. He really wanted to talk to his hero, 'Phantom'.

"Because the Ultimate Enemy might come back. I can't ever defeat him for good." Maybe Darius and I could talk for a little while. I could get some information from him. "I guess though, since you've taken over for me, it couldn't hurt." Yet. Vlad and Valerie looked furious. They were floating behind Darius.

The boy looked extremely happy. **Okay, I'm going to talk to my hero! Be calm… cool…** "We can sit on the roof if it's better for you." I nodded and he flew over to the hospital roof, wincing as he sat down.

"You want to ask me something?" I said, already knowing the question.

"Yeah, actually. Why did you leave? And why did you come back now? You've been gone for over twelve years!"

I thought about it for a moment. "I came back because I had too. I wanted to see this city again. The ultimate enemy followed me though. As for why I left…" Why not tell the truth? "The girl I loved married my best friend."

Darius looked mortified. "Sally and Trent got married?"

It took me a moment to figure out from his mind that those were the names Sam had made up for herself and Tucker. "Yeah."

"But Sally loved you! She always did but could never tell you! Why did she marry Trent?" He spoke Tucker's fake name with contempt. I was silent. So Sam had always loved me. All along.

"Trent spent a lot of time with her while I was fighting ghosts. He fell in love with her and was jealous that Sally loved me instead. So one day he blasted me with a gun that put me into a… the Ghost Zone. I couldn't get back." Telling him I was in a coma would bring up too many questions. "By the time I escaped it was too late."

Darius looked down at his cast. "How dare he do that to you. And Sally. Why didn't she do anything?"

"She couldn't. I was trapped, and she didn't realize how jealous Trent had been, so she thought it was an accident."

"So my mom lied to me. She said you left of your own free will, and that you were fine."

"She might not have known. Don't blame her. Trent kept a lot of secrets from a lot of people. I never knew he loved Sally. I always thought he'd support me if I started a relationship with her. But he stabbed me in the back instead."

Darius glared at the space in front of him. "Why? He always seemed kind in the stories. He always made lame jokes and stuff. Never did he ever seem so… evil."

"There are a lot of things left out of stories. You need to hear more than one side in order to get the whole picture."

"Where is he now? Trent? Hopefully in a ditch somewhere." I could feel the hatred radiating from him and looked away to hide my smirk. "Is he the one you said you were looking for?"

"No. I'm searching for a partner of mine. I'm not sure where Trent is. I saw Sally a couple of times, but I didn't reveal myself."

Darius frowned. "I can't believe they would do that to you. Never would I even think that!"

"I know. I was shocked too, trust me." I stood up. "You should go back to your room now. Someone will notice you're gone."

"Yeah." **He's right, even though I don't want to go.** He struggled to his feet. I made no move to help. "Thanks Phantom, for saving me last night. And for explaining things."

"No problem." I vanished, watching him look around and then float back to his room. Now I was grinning. I had succeeded where Vlad had failed. I had turned Darius against his father, even if he didn't know it yet. And all it took was two different costumes.

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I resumed my search for Shadow, my ghost sense silent until I approached a large white building. Then it went crazy. I tried to phase through the wall, but it was ghost proof. I smirked again and froze the wall before smashing it to pieces. Ghost proof, but not freeze proof.

Shadow was there, and so were a hundred other ghosts. All of them trapped. An alarm started to blare, and the Guys in White began to show up. I blocked out their distracting thoughts the best I could and found the main control switch. In an instant all of the cages were open, and ghosts were flying everywhere. I watched invisibly for a moment. Darius was going to have his hands full.

I left through the roof and waited outside for Shadow to appear. It did, looking sorry. _"They captured me last night at the bridge."_

"I'll accept that excuse. Besides, looking like a hero gave me a chance to mess with Darius' head."

Shadow grinned, and swirled around me, changing my appearance to the way it was before. It was good to be back.

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**Tucker's POV**

His daughter acted strange around him. Tucker told Jamie what had happened, and her response was, "You came out of your office and mom didn't even know?"

Tucker was trying his best to take care of her. But he wasn't doing very well. They had to order take out because Tucker couldn't make anything besides sandwiches. Jamie frowned at this, and said that Chinese food was made of cats and dogs, or at least, that's what Sam had told her.

Tucker was going to watch cartoons with her but she wanted to watch some boring sitcom instead. He sat there; feeling like his brain was turning to mush. Finally it was time for Jamie to go to bed.

"Will you tell me a story, Father?" That was another thing that bothered Tucker. She refused to call him Dad. She always said, Father.

"If you stop calling me that. What do you want to hear about kiddo?"

"Danny Phantom of course! Please, Fa- Dad?"

Tucker looked at her eager face. Sam was right. These kids really did love Danny more than him. Just look at his daughter! But he couldn't refuse, and told her about the time when he was pharaoh of the world, downplaying Danny's role. She didn't like it, and booed at 'Trent' when he sent Danny to the coliseum. Finally she went to sleep though, and Tucker left the room to stew in his own thoughts.

What was it about Danny that made everyone love him? Tucker thought. His powers? His heroism? His personality? Tucker frowned. Sam's argument last night had forced him to think about the past, something he had hoped he could put behind him.

The day Danny was put to sleep was imprinted on Tucker's memory for all time. He was going to ask Sam to be his girlfriend. It had taken him nearly forever to build up the courage. Then he found Danny and asked him if he was okay. But of course he wasn't. Danny had decided to ask Sam to be his girlfriend that day too.

Tucker remembered his shock. He had been unable to focus on anything, and didn't get the chance to talk to Sam either. Then during English class an alarm went off. Tucker remembered looking out the window and seeing Vlad fly towards Danny and Valerie. He and Sam ran from the room in the confusion and worked their way outside.

The Fenton's had arrived, and Tucker vaguely recalled that Jack was explaining what his latest invention was. The Specter Sleeper. Then a fight occurred above him, Jack aimed the gun, and Tucker had tackled him, causing the blast to hit Danny.

Then it was over. Everyone was silent. Danny fell from the sky, changing into his human form, and went into stasis. The Fenton's freaked out, and everything thinkable had been done to help Danny.

And Sam… Tucker had watched her destroy herself. She refused to leave Danny's side. She stopped eating, taking care of herself, and Tucker hated Danny for causing her so much pain. Tucker helped her back from the edge. He took care of her. He held her when she cried. He gave her the one thing Danny never did. Love.

Later he proposed, and she agreed. Tucker was elated. The girl of his dreams was his now. Or so he thought. She was constantly talking about Danny, and when they adopted Darius Tucker couldn't help but notice how much his face looked like his old friend's. Some part of him missed Danny, but another part wanted Sam to be his completely, and that would never happen.

So he locked himself away, leaving Sam to her memories of Danny. Tucker didn't want to think about it, didn't want to be reminded. Because ever since he had proposed to Sam he had the nasty suspicion that he had put Danny into a coma on purpose.


	15. Emotional Rollarcoaster

**_Alright, here's the news. I have the whole rest of the story written. There are four more chapters after this one, bringing it up to 19 chapters. If something changes I will tell, but 19 is the number now..._**

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_Revenge is a kiss_

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I closed my eyes and opened my mind. Shadow was silent, helping me focus my power. I was getting better with my ability to read minds, and my tracking skill was more useful than I had expected. As long as I had read their thoughts at least once, I could pick out their location.

Darius was supposed to be in the hospital still. He healed fast though, because of his ghost powers, but thanks to the ghosts I had unleashed when I saved Shadow he kept getting hurt again. I focused on his mind. He was flying back towards his hospital room, probably just returning from a fight.

Now I looked for Sam. It was about time David appeared. She was a few blocks away, in a crowded area. Perfect. I opened my eyes, grinning wickedly, and jumped from the roof of my apartment into the sky.

I landed in an ally and changed into my human form. As stealthily as I could manage I worked my way into the throng of people and opened my mind for Sam again. I followed her thoughts to her, ignoring other's thoughts the best I could. Finally I saw her. She looked exhausted and depressed, all because of her son's injuries.

Sam saw me and stopped walking, but she didn't smile. **Why is it that whenever I see him I feel silly? It's just like in high school with Danny. Tucker's right, I haven't been smart at all. David isn't Danny, and I shouldn't fool myself. I'm married!**

I hadn't realized how much Sam would find marriage as a barrier. I wasn't sure what I had expected from her. Love at first sight? I drew closer to her and said, "You don't look well. Will you tell me what's going on? I don't mean to pry into your life or anything, I'm just concerned."

She looked into my eyes, seeing what I hope was sincerity. **His eyes are just like Danny's…** Sam blinked and looked away. "I've been going through a lot of problems David. None of which you need to hear about." **Even if I really want to get them off of my chest.**

She hadn't realized that we had started walking. "I know, and I shouldn't have asked. I just… hate to see you so depressed."

Sam laughed, a little bitterly. "It's that easy to tell? Usually I can mask my emotions." **And look at where it got me. Before I could tell Danny I loved him he was put into a coma**.

"I always thought of you as the sort of person who would speak their mind no matter what?" She smiled and sighed.

"Yeah… I don't like to go with the flow. But having a family sort of forces you to." **I can't believe I just said that out loud.** "Not that I regret it or anything." **Great Sam, rub in the fact that he doesn't have one.** "I mean, it's okay." **Just shut up spaz!**

I laughed. "Really? I had always hoped it would be more than okay. I guess it's overrated."

Sam smiled slightly and suddenly realized where we were. As we were talking I had led her to the park, and we were outside the entrance to the grove of aspen where we used to sit and talk together. I didn't know what had drawn me here. Her eyes widened and her lip trembled.

I put on a concerned face. "Sam, what's wrong?" She ignored me and stepped forward, into the trees, before bursting into tears. I ran forward, real concern showing now, and before I could think of a better reaction I wrapped my arms around her. Her frame shook with sobs, and I gently pulled her against me.

"This… place… it's… Danny's…" Her thoughts were in turmoil too, and I could do nothing but let her cry into my shoulder. I had never seen her cry before. For once the strong independent girl I had known was gone. In her place was this woman who couldn't take all of the stress life was putting on her. I shut my eyes and placed my head on top of hers. All of the stress I was putting on her.

After awhile she began to calm down, still trembling every now and then. She made no move to get out of my embrace. I slowly eased us onto the ground, and she pulled away slowly.

"You must think I'm horrible, crying in front of you. It's just that this place holds a lot of memories for me. Good ones, but they bring back the bad ones. And everything that's been going on lately seems to remind me of those memories." She crossed her legs and looked away from me. "I guess I can't really say that nothing's wrong now."

"I already offered to listen."

Sam looked at me again. **You look so much like Danny… I can't lie to him.** She sighed. "You really want to hear what's going on in my life?"

"It might be nice, to get it off your chest."

"Alright." She glanced around at the trees. "I used to sit here with a friend of mine. A long time ago. We would talk about everything. I always hoped he loved me as much as I loved him. But before I could find out he…" she closed her eyes. "He fell into a coma that he's been in for over twelve years. There was another friend of mine, Tucker. We were never really close in the same way I had been with the first boy, but when he proposed I said yes, because I needed Tucker to keep me sane." She laughed a little. "A lot of good that did."

I was silent. I was finally hearing what had happened.

"Secretly I had always hoped the first boy would wake up. I didn't know what I would do if he did, I realize that now, but I dreamed about him at night, about him waking up." She was quiet for a little while. "Tucker never wanted to talk about our friend. He wanted to forget about him. But I couldn't. And then Tucker got wrapped up in an Internet business, built a soundproof room, and locked me out. You can't imagine how much it hurt me, losing both of my friends."

My eyes roamed her pretty face. How could I have put her through so much pain? "It's hard."

"I had been doing better lately though. Until things started happening that connected with the other boy. I guess I can't put off saying his name. Danny. Anyways, a man who was… on bad terms with Danny was found dead. I hadn't even thought about the man in years, and suddenly I hear his name on the news. And then a girl who had been predigest against Danny also died."

"Then a new ghost shows up in town. The one in red and black. He saved me, and he told me… that he was a murderer. I wanted to believe that he was Danny. But Danny would never kill someone. Or, at least, the Danny I had known."

I focused on a tree in the distance, hoping my face was blank. Sam still thought of me as a hero. After all I had done.

"And my son came home a few nights ago beaten almost to death. Apparently the ghost had done it to him. The ghost's name is Dan Phantom. Darius told us he was going to come after Tucker. He's another reminder of the past. Everything just seems to point to Danny. I haven't visited him in years. I've felt too guilty to."

Sam sighed and looked at the grass. "I'm sorry." I said. "You're very strong. No one else could handle so much." Silence filled the grove again. "Sam… I…" I wanted to tell her who I was. But I couldn't. Not now. "Thank you for trusting me."

But she wasn't done. "Then you saved me. I know it's not your fault, but you remind me so much of Danny. He had blue eyes too." She looked at me now. "I feel like I've known you my whole life. Instead of just seeing you three times. I'm glad someone out there has some kindness left in them." We watched each other's faces for a long time. Slowly we drew closer, our lips almost meeting, when she sprang to her feet suddenly. "I've got to get going! Thanks for talking!"

Before she could leave I grabbed her wrist loosely. She turned around, tears streaming down her face again. My blue eyes met her amethyst ones. "I can keep you sane better than Tucker."

We kissed each other. I wrapped my arms around her again, and we deepened the embrace. It was so different than what I had always pictured it. Doing it behind her husband's back, both of us hiding secrets, instead of two teenagers who had finally confessed their feelings for each other. The secrecy made it almost sweeter, knowing that I was stealing her back from Tucker.

But I would have given anything to have it be the other way.

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**Sam and Tucker's POV**

Tucker glanced over at Sam. She had been jumpy ever since she got home. He wondered if she was nervous about Darius. His recovery was going very slowly. Sam said she had been at the hospital the whole day.

Meanwhile Tucker had been at home taking care of Jamie and the house. Not once had he returned to his computer. He had cleaned, cooked, and did everything he thought a dad should do. Jamie was calling him Dad now, and he had loved spending time with her. He glanced at Sam on the couch next to him. She was stressed, he could tell. "I'll go to the hospital to see Darius tomorrow."

Sam was shocked. "But you're terrified of hospitals, Tucker."

"Yeah, but I want to see Darius more than I'm terrified of needles, and you need to rest. Jamie will be at school, so you can have the day to yourself." He smiled at her and then got up. "I'm going to go to bed early tonight. Jamie's harder to handle than I had realized." Tucker kissed Sam goodnight, something he had not done in a long time, and walked away.

Sam watched him go. Her emotions were in turmoil now. Why did Tucker have to decide to come back to her the same day she had fallen in love with David?


	16. Pain And Suffering

**_Okay, this is a longer chapter with lots of POV changes. Remember, first person is always Danny. Thanks everyone for all of the reviews! thank you Mutantlover09 for making this chapter a little longer, even though I changed your idea a bit._**

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_And what shoulder, and what art, could twist the sinews of thy heart?_

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**Tuck's POV**

The next day, true to his word, Tucker went to the hospital to visit Darius. His son was surprised. Tucker noticed that he didn't seem 'pleasantly' surprised, just caught off guard. He sat down in the chair next to Darius and looked at him, feeling terrible himself. This should not have happened. He should have been around to stop his son from sneaking out.

Darius, meanwhile, was panicking. With his dad here watching his every move he couldn't fight ghosts. There had been a lot more than usual. He had tried finding Danny Phantom, but he hadn't appeared since their talk on the roof. Luckily the Ultimate Enemy hadn't shown himself either.

Tucker sighed. He needed to talk to Darius now before things got more out of hand. "Hey kid." He said, breaking the silence. "We need to talk."

"Dad, if it's about me sneaking out, I'm sorry. I went to meet some friends, and the ghost ambushed me. I-" Darius stopped. His dad was staring at him intently.

"Remember a year ago when you accidentally fell through the ghost catcher?"

Darius held his breath. Of course he remembered. That was the accident that gave him his ghost powers. He had gotten covered in ectoplasm from an experiment gone wrong, tripped over the ghost catcher and it had fallen on him. He was lucky enough where he fell through the glowing netting, but he was unlucky enough to go through the 'Side 2 Merge' side. The ectoplasm fused with his DNA, and by the time he realized he had ghost powers it was too late to split himself without side effects.

Tucker looked his son in the eyes. "I should have been around to stop that. But I wasn't. I was locked in my room."

Now Darius let out the breath in a low hiss. His secret was still unknown. He almost missed what Tucker had said.

"And… I'm sorry I've been such a terrible father. You remind me a lot of a friend of mine who isn't around anymore, and it hurt to remember him. I promise that I'll be better. I've spent almost all my life devoted to technology. It's time I acted like a dad."

"What about your business?"

"We've made enough money anyways." Tucker smiled at his son. "Now that that's out of the way, do you mind if I go down to the cafeteria and find something to eat? Maybe food will keep my mind off the fact that I'm in the hospital." He left the room.

Darius watched him go, and then changed into his ghost form. "Alright ghost, show yourself."

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I couldn't help but satisfy my curiosity. It was fine to follow Darius' mind, but I needed to make sure that his injuries would keep him in the hospital. If Tucker was going to die, his son couldn't be around to destroy my plans.

So invisibly I flew to the hospital, in the costume Shadow had given me. Darius noticed my presence immediately. He tensed up and changed into his ghost form. "Alright ghost, show yourself."

I entered the room and appeared in front of him, grinning. He jumped off of the bed, and I noticed with satisfaction that his arm was in a cast. "Hello Darius. Having a little trouble healing I see?" He said nothing. "Nothing to say? I always had witty banter to throw in my enemy's faces."

"What did you say to Danny Phantom when he beat you?" He shot an ectobeam at me. I caught it and tossed it from one hand to another.

"Danny Phantom? I believe I laughed in his face. Right before I destroyed him the other night." This was too easy. I should have been an actor. "Your hero no longer exists."

**He's lying. He has to be! Phantom can't die!** I laughed and sent his blast back at him, knocking him onto the bed. Then I sent beams of ectoplasm that held him down. "You can't kill a ghost!"

"Tell, me then, if he wasn't dead, then why have you been fighting so many ghosts without his help, even though he knows you're injured?"

"He's been busy stopping you."

"If that were true, then why was I able to get in here, hmm? Phantom is gone."

**No, he can't be! No!** "You're lying!" I walked over to where he was and electrified the bonds, forcing him to turn human.

"You wish."

Then another person's mind penetrated my head. **This is the worst hotdog I've ever had. I hope Darius won't mind it though. He's been living off of this stuff.** I bound Darius' mouth shut and turned invisible.

Tucker entered the room. I froze in place, watching as he saw his son and began to panic. Darius was awake, trying to break the ectoplasm, and Tucker tried to help. My hand raised to blast them both, and I could feel the invisible beam form. But I dropped it. I wasn't ready to kill him. Not yet. He needed to hurt more. I needed to steal Sam first, and then destroy him.

I turned and flew from the room, away from the doomed man and his son.

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**Darius' POV**

A few days had passed since Darius had been attacked in his room. For some reason Tucker had been the one to visit him daily, instead of Sam. He didn't want to ask why because he was worried he would offend his 'new and improved' dad. It was seriously cutting into his ghost fighting though.

He had to sneak out whenever his dad wasn't in the room. Usually when he was getting lunch. Darius had to convince him to go to the restaurant conveniently placed next to the hospital and take at least an hour to eat. Tucker had reluctantly accepted, and Darius had to spend his lunch hour rounding up ghosts with a broken arm.

Darius looked down at his watch and realized it was time to go back to the hospital. He glanced around one last time and his eyes locked on a pair of people below him. For a minute he didn't react, too shocked to even think. His mom was on the ground below him, holding hands with a stranger.

No way… his brain was screaming at him to leave, but he couldn't. Instead he floated down and landed behind them, invisible. The man suddenly looked over his shoulder, at directly the spot Darius was standing, like he sensed him. His ice blue eyes bored into Darius'. Then he smirked, as if to say, Enjoy this, kid and…

His mom was cheating on his dad! Darius backed up away from them, ran into someone else who screamed at bumping into solid air, and then took off into the sky. That man had kissed his mom, and his mom had kissed him back! He went back to the hospital and pretended to be asleep when his dad came in. He didn't think he could talk to either of his parents for a while.

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**Sam's POV**

Sam stared at the ceiling, trying to figure out what she wanted. Why was her life always confusing? Sure, she thought, it'd be boring if it was easy, but she wouldn't mind a break. She rolled over and looked at the clock. It was almost noon. Sam sighed.

Her time with David had sent her world spinning. She couldn't believe she was doing this. He was a stranger! Some man she had met a few weeks ago! Just because he reminded her of Danny she had thought that she loved him. That was stupid of her. She muttered about her own insanity and got up.

She was married. Tucker loved her, and she loved him, just not as much. At first she was convinced she could get away with an affair. But Tucker had turned around. Darius' accident opened his eyes, and Sam's. She couldn't leave her family. She wouldn't. And her life would be a little bit calmer once she got this over with.

Sam picked up the phone.

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Shadow wasn't happy. "_I'm bored with this human act. Why not cause more destruction?"_

I rolled my eyes. "Wait until I kill Tucker. Then you can cause as much destruction as you want." We had just made it back to the apartment. I changed back to normal and happened to look down at the message machine. It was flashing. There was only one person who had my number. Sam. I pressed the play button.

"**David, I want to talk to you. Will you meet me at the Vegan Café? Where you took me when we first met? I'll be there by one. I hope you get this message before then."**

The clock said it was twelve thirty. I changed into my ghost form and flew to the restaurant, turning human on a side street, and then waited for her out front.

_"Don't you want to read her mind?"_

"I might later. Not right now though." I wasn't going to read her thoughts unless I had to. It was hard not to laugh or answer them back.

I turned around and saw her coming up the street towards me. I smiled at her, but she didn't return it. Something was wrong. "Sam, are you okay?" Maybe Tucker had finally told her about what had happened at the hospital.

"Come on, let's go inside."

Shadow overshadowed the waitress again and led us over to the same private table as before. We sat down. Sam wouldn't look at me. "Are you alright? What's wrong?"

"This!" she said loudly, drawing the attention of the surrounding tables. Then she began to whisper. "I'm sorry David. I'm married. My family and marriage is more important to me than a man who reminds me of a friend I used to have a crush on. My husband has turned around, and my children need me."

I stared at her, not believing what I was hearing. She was dumping me for Tucker? "Sam, you can't… Tucker's not good enough for you."

She looked down at her hands. "It's the other way around. I'm not good enough for him. He's at the hospital with Darius and I'm sneaking around behind his back. That's why I'm stopping this relationship before it gets any deeper. I'm sorry." Sam got up to leave. I grabbed her arm tightly.

"I'm not losing you again, Sam. I've loved you all of my life and never stopped caring about you." I couldn't stop; panic forced the words out. "The reason I remind you of Danny is because I _am_ Danny. I woke up from my coma and came back. Please Sam, please…"

Sam looked furious. "Let me go!" She yelled. "You're just some stalker who can't handle rejection. You are nothing like Danny. I have no idea what I saw in you." She dug her nails into my hand, but I barely felt them. "Stop it you psycho! Let me go!" My hand loosened and dropped to the table. Sam ran out the door.

The restaurant was silent. I stared at the bloody marks on my hand, watching them heal. Sam hated me. She was gone. If I killed Tucker now she would find someone else, and I would lose her again. The same thing repeated over and over in my head for however long I sat there. I had lost.

"Hey man, the manager asked me to tell you to leave. Since you caused such a commotion and aren't even going to order anything." A waiter was staring at me intently. "Hey, were you crying? Your eyes are red."

I stood up, gripping the edge of the table to stop myself from strangling the man. "No." I said softly, glaring at him. "My eyes are red because I am part ghost. When I am angry they turn red to show my fury." There was a slight cracking sound underneath my hands. "The girl I have loved since ninth grade just turned me away for my friend." The table seemed to groan under the pressure of my grip. "I have spent months, working on my human charade, trying to win her back." The wood cracked again, and this time pieces came off in my fists. "Why do you think they're red?"

Another of my powers revealed itself. The room exploded.


	17. Power Surge

**_To those who have read my other stories, I apologize for a certain similarity. To those who have not, ignore this._**

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_No one is free who is not master of himself._

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I walked out of the inferno that had been the restaurant. A flash of light changed me into my ghost half and I continued walking down the street as sirens began to sound. As I passed the next building it too collapsed in a fiery explosion. I shut my ears to the noise of screams, only focusing on what was in front of me.

Each building I passed on both sides of the street suffered the same fate as the last. I walked at a leisurely pace, going nowhere and destroying everything. This was the result of my hatred. This was my wrath. Police showed up in front of me. "Stop or we'll shoot!" I continued walking, turning intangible to avoid the bullets. Now the cars they were standing next to burst into flame, blasting the police out of my way.

A reporter was suddenly next to me, a cameraman next to her. "Excuse us, ghost, why are you intent on destroying the town? And do you think you can take on Phantom?" I didn't even look at her. Instead I grabbed the camera lens and melted it. Another building collapsed. They left.

Next came the Guys in White. I turned my power on them. They screamed as their guns exploded in their hands, and ran away, helpless without their ghost weapons. My ghost sense began to go off and I caught sight of a few ghosts fly out of my way. Now I closed my eyes and spread out my arms, opening two long portals as I walked. Ghosts began to pour into the town I was ruining, their yells mixing with the human's shrieks.

I could easily have been one of the ghosts, destroying for pleasure, for the joy of the humans' pain. I could have been one of the humans, begging for mercy and feeling the pain of injuries and the loss of their loved ones. Unfortunately I was neither. I destroyed because of my pain. I felt none of my physical wounds, but all of my losses were brought back by the latest.

I heard a blast shoot past my ear, missing by inches. I opened my eyes, but didn't turn around. Another blast was coming, but bounced off a shield I created seconds before impact. I released my grip on the air and focused on the shield, expanding it. The bright green sphere smashed into the surrounding buildings, shoving them backwards before they exploded when I passed. Someone was standing on the street ahead. The bubble vanished.

My mind didn't register what I was seeing, and I froze in place. In front of me, her red hair blowing wildly in the wind, was Jazz. She wasn't holding a gun, or any sort of weapon. Just a small piece of paper. "Danny!" Jazz, yelled. I stared at her. She knew. She had figured out who I was. She had seen all of my destruction, and still she was trusting me not to hurt her. I took a step towards her when a blast hit the ground right near my foot.

"Hey, Mr. Mood Swing! Can't you see I'm trying to fight you here?" Darius landed in front of me. "What, you're chicken?"

I looked past him at Jazz, who watched us with sad eyes. She was the only one who still believed in me. A blast struck me in the chest, knocking me back. Anger consumed me like fire, and the rest of the buildings on the street blew apart against my will.

The dust from the wreckage filled the air. My eyes were burning with hatred as I dove through it and caught Darius by the throat. "How dare you try to stop me. I'll need to break more than just your arm." I tightened my grip and hissed, "And I won't go soft like last time."

"W-what?"

"I am Danny Phantom." I said, grinning insanely. I had had enough of pretending. "Your hero was me when I was a teenager. Sure, I changed my appearance a little, but the fact remains the same. And here's another fact you might find interesting. Remember on the roof of the hospital when you said that you hoped Trent was in a ditch somewhere?"

He made a gagging noise and I loosened my grip a little. He needed to hear this. "Phantom is shot by Trent and mysteriously disappears. Sally and Trent get married. I come to Amity Park to kill your father. Phantom appears. I lied to you on the roof. I don't love Sally. Trent didn't shoot me. Tucker did. I love Sam. They've lied to you for years. Your father betrayed me. He will die."

I threw him backwards into the path of destruction I had caused. He managed to turn intangible and avoid colliding with the debris, but didn't reappear. My ghost sense confirmed that he was gone. Probably off to warn Tucker and Sam. Not that it mattered now.

"_That was fun._" Shadow said. "_I'm shocked you had it in you."_

I wasn't surprised. I had felt the power growing in me, waiting to be used. It was bad that I had lost control like that, but it didn't make any difference. I felt empty now, like my anger had been used up along with my energy. It probably was. In fact I was exhausted, now that the adrenaline had stopped, and I wasn't even sure I could make it to a secluded place to change back to my human half.

My eyes roamed the destruction that was in front of me now too. I couldn't remember why I had stopped in the first place. Then I saw a bleeding arm sticking out of a pile of stone and glass.

I ran over and phased my arms into the rock, pulling Jazz out of the rubble. Blood was flowing from everywhere, and glass was still deep in many of the cuts. I brought her closer and hugged her like I had done with Sam only a few days ago. Grief forced me to turn back to normal, witnesses or not, and now I could feel her blood soaking into my skin. It was slower though. I felt for a pulse, a heartbeat, a breath… nothing. My sister, the one person who knew I had come back, the only person who believed I could still be a hero, was dead.

Suddenly my senses came back down to earth. I could hear the sirens wailing, smell the blood and fire as it spread everywhere. People were yelling to each other, buildings rumbled and continued to collapse on the rescuers, screams tore through the rest of noise.

I fell on to my knees with her body still in my arms. Now people were coming towards us, probably to kill me now that they knew I was part human, and I pulled her closer, refusing to let her go. My vision blurred, and then everything went black.

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"Shite, I can't believe this."

I didn't recognize the voice. Blood was pounding under my ears, proving that I wasn't dead yet. From what I could tell I wasn't strapped down either.

"Look at this guy, Frank. He was found in the middle of the damage from the last explosion, he's covered in blood, but he doesn't have a scratch on him."

We were in something that was moving. As we went over a bump I heard a few people moan.

"Yeah, it's a freakin' miracle. The guys who brought him here said he had his arms wrapped around a corpse. They practically had to use the Jaws of Life to get him to let go. And he was out cold then too."

Jazz! I sat up, making my head spin. "Where's my sister!?" I said, putting my hands behind me to steady myself. "Where is she!?" I realized I was in an ambulance, and looked around for her. All of the other passengers were strangers. "Where's Jazz!?"

The two men who had been talking looked scared. It was one of the other wounded who answered me. "She's dead, like my friend." He said, his eyes full of hate. "That ghost killed them, and at least a hundred others. Then he vanished. No one knows where the bastard went."

"No…" I couldn't have killed her. I didn't kill her. It wasn't my fault…

"It's hard to believe they're dead, I know."

I had lost everyone I had ever cared for. Mom and Dad, Jazz, Sam… All of them. Nothing I could ever do would bring the dead back to life, and Sam had rejected me. I stared into space, disbelieving. It wasn't me. No, I knew whose fault it was.

Darius. If he hadn't tried to stop me I never would have lost control. The buildings wouldn't have blown up, and Jazz would be alive. I looked down now, at the dark stains across my chest that were her blood. Darius had no idea what he had done. Now both he and Tucker would die in front of Sam. I no longer cared about Sam's love. Tucker and his son needed to pay.

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I spent the rest of the ride in silence, my mind blank. We arrived at the hospital, and I was about to leave the ambulance to fly home when I noticed that one of the ambulance workers was watching me. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. "Your rescuer told me to give this to you. Apparently it was in your sister's hand." He didn't come closer, instead choosing to stretch his arm out towards me; probably worried I would yell again. I took it carefully.

My body seemed detached from my brain, and I flew home without even trying to. I phased through the roof and landed in the dark apartment. I had almost forgotten the small paper in my hand, and changed back to normal before flicking on a light to look at it.

Jazz had been waving this, trying to get me to see it. It wasn't paper, like I had thought. It was a picture that had been crushed in her hand. I unfolded it and smoothed it image side down, almost afraid of what it was of. Then I flipped it over and stared at it, unable to take my eyes away.

It was a picture of three teens posing together, Sam Tucker and I from a lifetime ago.


	18. The Lunatic

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_Revenge is like a poison. It can take us over and turn us into something ugly._

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**Sam's POV **

She stared at the screen, unable to remove her eyes. The ghost who she had mistaken for Danny was being shown destroying the street. Sam watched in horror as he walked slowly down the street leaving the city behind him in ruins. No camera crews dared to get close to him after the footage that was melted, so the film was from helicopters and at a distance.

Sam squinted and stared at the ghost. His face held no signs of pleasure at all. Just pain. How strange, she thought, that the infamous Dan Phantom who supposedly enjoyed killing everything, didn't now.

His red eyes closed and his arms spread out, tearing at the air. Portals. Then a blast almost struck him down, but he created a huge shield to smash anything near him. Suddenly he froze, staring at something off screen, his face full of surprise and shock. Sam would have given anything to see what it was.

Then the new Phantom landed in front of the ghost and tried to fight him. A huge explosion knocked down eight of the surrounding buildings and all of the cameras. The screen went black, and a new cameraperson's footage was aired, showing Dan run away and vanish from view behind a pile of broken building. There was a bright flash of white light and-

Sam's breath caught in her throat. The anchorwoman was spouting some random facts, and the screen was now scanning the destruction, but now Sam's mind was glued to what she had just seen. The flash had been obscured behind the rubble, but it had still been visible. It was what transformed a halfa into their other form. She wanted to forget what she had seen, but David's words ran through her head along with the footage.

"The reason I remind you of Danny is because I am Danny. I woke up from my coma and came back."

The flash of light, the mysterious ghost, the man who was like Danny. It was impossible. Sam looked at the screen again, hoping for a replay. But the news people had moved on to a new topic, and the words filled her head causing her to shove her concerns to the back of her mind.

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I dropped the picture as if it had burned me and stepped back. My back connected with something soft, and my hand was suddenly covered in wriggling things. I spun around and screamed even though I should have been expecting them. I looked down at my hand and saw maggots trying to dig into my flesh, and turned intangible so that they fell to the ground.

Vlad reached out and grabbed me by my chin, forcing me to look at him. Most of the skin on his face had been eaten away, and his skeletal grin caused me to shudder. "Enjoying your power, little badger?" He said. Then he threw me backwards against the wall. My head cracked against it and I sank to the floor.

"How can you talk? How can you hurt me?" I gasped out. "You're hallucinations."

"Oh, you'd be amazed at how much power we have over you Daniel." Vlad said, moving towards me. I stood up and pressed myself against the wall. "And you'd also be amazed at how many of us there are. Shall we show him, my dear?"

"Of course." I noticed Valerie for the first time, and she was smiling toothlessly at Vlad. Then she focused on me. "It's getting crowded in your head Danny. It's time we let everyone out."

"No." I whispered, trying to shrink away from her as much as I could. She came forward, and just as she was about to touch my forehead I phased through the wall and fled to the roof of the building. I landed and turned, only to find them standing in front of me. "No!"

"I'd like to introduce you to some friends of ours." Vlad said, making a flourish with his hand. I backed away again, and prepared to go ghost and fly off when I was instantly surrounded. At least a hundred pairs of eyes were staring at me. I froze in place, and their voices engulfed me.

"You killed us all!" They cried as one. "You killed women, men, children, the elderly, all because of your obsession! You can not stop now!"

"Shadow, help me!" I yelled, unable to stop myself from shaking as the hallucinations faces, some bloody, some burnt off, scream at me everywhere.

_"Danny, there's no one here! Snap out of it! NOW!"_

I wasn't shivering; it was someone else shaking me back and forth. I lashed out with my hand and tore a portal right through the middle of their insubstantial form. My eyes locked on to my victim just in time to realize it was Shadow. It was sucked through the portal and it snapped shut, screaming in pain the whole way. Now I was alone with the monsters.

They advanced on me, all of them, and then I was being crushed under the weight of their undead bodies. I couldn't concentrate enough to use any of my powers, and fought like an animal instead. I ripped at them, kicked them, and the whole time I was screaming furiously.

"Hey, what are you doing? You! What the heck are you doing?" Hands grabbed my arms, pinning them to my sides, and I howled in anger and phased of my latest attacker's grip. Now it was my turn. My hands wrapped around his neck, and with all of the strength I had in my human form I threw him from the roof of the building.

"I'll kill you Tucker!" I yelled to the sky. "I'll make you pay for doing this to me!" and I fell to my knees. I was alone on the rooftop again; my tormentors satisfied that they had forced me to stay on my path to murder. Now sirens were sounding, but I couldn't think of an explanation. I crawled over to the edge of the roof and looked down.

The broken body of one of my neighbors lay on the ground far below. I suddenly realized that he was the one I had thrown over the edge. The one who wasn't a hallucination. Or at least, he hadn't been then.

I stood up and looked over now. How easy it would be just to jump and meet the same fate as everyone I've come in contact with. One leg stretched out over the ledge, but I pulled it back in. There was no other way out of this besides Tucker's death. I transformed into my ghost form and flew up, instead of falling down.

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"In other news, a man named John Garner was found dead on the sidewalk in front of his apartment today. It was first thought to be suicide, but it was discovered that his neck was crushed due to someone strangling him before he was thrown off the roof of the building. The main suspect at this time is a David Parks, who other tenants say was a recluse, often talked to himself when he was alone in his room, and was heard screaming up on the roof himself. Parks has not been found yet, and civilians are encouraged to be on the watch for him."

**Wow, everyone in this town has gone crazy! With the ghost and a murderer on the loose it's not safe for anyone.**

**I hope the cops catch this Parks guy. We've got enough loonies as it is.**

**What a sicko. Strangling that man and chucking him over the rooftop! That man had a family too! He's almost as bad as that ghost.**

I was invisible. After the police came I flew away and walked around Amity Park. Shadow was gone, and I was alone. Now I was an outcast as a human and a ghost. I turned away from the TV screens behind the glass and floated off of the ground. I had already decided Tucker would die tonight.

First I needed to get my picture back. It reminded me of Sam, and… Jazz, and it was proof that a happier time existed for me once. I landed in my room and bent to pick up the picture, which was on the floor. My eyes traced over the familiar faces, but I felt nothing. A single mirage watched me, studied my movements. I faced her.

"You don't have to do this Danny." She said quietly. "You can just leave them alone. We're all imaginary you know. You don't have to fear us."

"No, I can't just leave Sam and Tuck alone. I have to kill Tucker, or this will never stop. I'm insane. I can't stop you from appearing, and I have to."

"And then what? You've killed Tucker and made Sam miserable! If you fail, then you'll be Darius' archenemy anyways, and the cycle will repeat again! Do you really want what happened to you to happen to Sam's only son?"

I didn't reply.

"Danny… please…"

"Go away."

She took a step forward but stopped. "Danny…" She bit her lip and stepped back. "I still know you can be a hero. Things don't need to end so badly."

"You're in my mind, remember? Nothing you say is real. Go away Jazz, before I try to blast you and destroy the innocent wall."

She faded away and I looked down at the picture in my hand, remembering the past. Maybe memories are better left hidden. I tore Tucker out of the picture and disintegrated his image. Then I clutched the rest of the picture in my fist and flew from my home for the final time.


	19. Fading Away

**_And now we come to the end of the line. Almost. There are two epilogues for the reader to pick! One, you'll have to read to find out what it is. The other, is a twisted ending. You can read both, if you'd like, and I assume you all will. They will come out at the same time, a few days after this, because they're both written. This message is going on the end of the chapter too, because for some reason people are more willing to read stuff at the end than at the beginning._**

**_(sob) I'm going to miss this story. It was one of my favorites. The quote, works with the story, but is basically how I feel._**

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_"__It's weird...you know the end of something great is coming, but you want to hold on, just for one more second...just so it can hurt a little more.__"_

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**Darius' POV**

He couldn't believe it. But he had to. There was no other plausible explanation.

Darius sat invisibly on the roof of the tallest building; the same one Danny had often watched the city from. In the distance he could hear the sirens still screaming. He couldn't go back though. He knew he couldn't beat the ghost… Danny Phantom.

As he thought about it what the ghost had told him made sense. He was mad that he hadn't realized it sooner. The only way his mom could have known so much about Phantom's adventures would be if she had _been_ there. There was no way she could have known so much about Sally unless she _was_ Sally.

And he hated the idea that his father, his goofy dad who had finally started acting like a dad again, had betrayed the great hero Danny Phantom and turned him into… the monster destroying Amity. It was true though. His mom would never have married his dad if Danny had been around.

Then there was his mother's affair. He never would have believed it if he hadn't seen them himself. Even the idea of his mom cheating on his dad seemed impossible. But it was all true. Everything.

Darius sighed and hung his head. He needed to talk to his parents. But he wasn't sure if he could face them when there were so many secrets kept between them.

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I soared through the night sky, the remaining piece of the picture still in my hand. Tucker's time was up. My path took me over the destroyed street, and there were still people searching in the wreckage for bodies. The portals were still open, surrounded by cones and police tape. Then a normal street, right next to the ruined one, replaced my view. It looked like nothing had happened in the city at all.

My flight came to an end as I dropped down to the ground in front of their house. The ghost shield they had wasn't up. Darius must not have told them about me. I walked up to the front door before blowing it off its hinges, sending it backwards into the next wall. If that didn't draw their attention I didn't know what would.

A little girl, Jamie, appeared first. She looked up at me and said, "You're a ghost!" She wasn't scared, just shocked.

"Hello." I said, bowing to her level and looking at her. "I'm Danny Phantom. Would you do me a favor and go upstairs until I ask you to come down? I need to talk to your parents." No point in ruining her childhood by making her witness the death of her father and brother.

"Only if you prove you're really Danny Phantom." She said, smiling.

I showed her the picture. "That's me and the girl I love. You know her as Sally."

Jamie looked at me in awe. "Wow."

"Get away from him Jamie!" I stood up straight and found Tucker and Sam both pointing guns at me. It was Sam who had spoken. Jamie looked scared.

"Go on. Remember, wait upstairs." She glanced from me to her parents and walked over to them.

"Don't hurt him mom, he's Danny Phantom." Then she waved at me before running up the stairs. Sam blinked and glared at me.

"Corrupting little kids now Dan?" She hissed. "That's low. I hope you didn't damage the Thermos too badly, because that's where you'll be heading back to." But there was fear in her eyes as she said it.

"I told you before Sam, I'm Danny. I woke up from my little nap and came back. But apparently I'm too late. Tucker already married you. Imagine how hard it is for me. I have no memory of the twelve years I spent in a coma. One day I was just starting my senior year, finally going to ask you to be my girlfriend, and the next I wake up alone in a hospital in a world where my parents are dead and you're married to a traitor."

Sam looked nervous. **No way…** "Before? The only time I talked to you, you said you weren't Danny."

"Well…" I changed into my human form. "I wasn't exactly myself when I told you I was." Sam's eyes bulged and Tucker gasped.

"David?"

"Danny Fenton." I changed back into my ghost form. "Unless you know someone else who is half ghost, who's still alive, that is."

"You're lying!" Tucker said, aiming his gun at me and firing. I caught the blast and turned it into bonds that strapped Sam to the wall. I covered her mouth too. This was between Tucker and I.

"Me? Lie? No, I've used up my quota!" I sent a blast back at him, making him jump out of the way. "But really, if either of us should be called a liar, it's you Tucker."

I flew forward and grabbed him by the front of his shirt, lifting him off of the ground. I smashed him against the wall and said. "Go ahead. Tell Sam everything. Tell me everything. We had been such good friends Tuck. What happened? If it really was an accident tell us. On your honor as my friend and Sam's husband, tell us the truth. Tell us that you weren't driven to pull the trigger out of jealousy, and that it really was an accident."

He said nothing. The silence was almost tangible.

"I knew it." My grip tightened and I flipped him over onto the ground. "Did you honestly think I would never come back? Or that I'd just fade away into the background?" I blasted him down as he tried to stand up. "Look at what you've turned me into Tucker. I am a murderer. I've killed at least a hundred now. I'm insane. All because you let jealousy get the best of you when I told you I loved Sam."

**He's right. I can't believe I've done this to him. No one deserves what he's been through. But how can he take it out on Sam?**

"Want to know what your wife did while you were ignoring her? Instead of patiently waiting for you to come back to her, like she did with me, she found 'David' instead." His eyes widened. I raised my hand back, the deadly red glow forming around it. "This will be the last thing you ever hear. Sam loves me. She always has."

"You really are Danny Phantom." But it wasn't Tucker who said it. Darius had appeared. "But that doesn't change the fact that you're evil, even if my parents didn't tell me the whole truth." He flew towards me. My fist shot out instinctively and collided with his head, sending him back across the room. He slammed against a wall and slid down it, becoming unconscious and human.

"Darius!" Tucker yelled, pulling himself up off of the floor. He ran over to his son. I walked over to them. Tucker glared at me, pushing Darius back a little. "You were Danny Phantom once. You were a hero who saved people every day. But now you're just as heartless as any other ghost. You tried to kill my son at least twice, and you can't redeem yourself for what you've done."

I grabbed him by his neck this time and lifted him up above my head. Uncontrollable fury ran through me. "My parents are dead. Sam is married to you. Jazz is dead. I am plagued by hallucinations of Vlad and Valerie's corpses. Don't pretend that you've had it worse than me. I spared your son. I let him live, even though he has done nothing to prove he was worthy of mercy, and he killed Jazz. If you want to defend him, fine. Your dead body will make a weak shield for him."

My vision fogged over suddenly. Sam's voice ran through my head, but it wasn't her thoughts. _"Danny, please wake up. I love you Danny, please…"_

Then another voice, one I almost didn't recognize, came through. _"I'm sorry Danny. I know that this is my fault. You have to wake up, for Sam's sake. She's dying without you, and I wish I was the one in the coma instead of you. Then at least she would be with the man she loved, and it would just be her friend asleep forever. But that didn't happen. I'm going to propose to her Danny. It's been two years now. One of us has to keep her alive, and I messed up your chance. She'll never love me like she loves you, but she needs someone. If… When… you wake up, I hope you'll understand."_

Tucker's voice. He had been talking to me when I was in the hospital. He had waited for me too.

I stared at him, stunned, my hand still raised. "You wanted me to wake up? Even after you were going to marry Sam?" My voice seemed different, more like Danny Phantom of the past. He looked up at me, his eyes wide in surprise. Then he nodded slowly. Everyone's thoughts were running through my head at once, mine mixed in the downpour.

**What's going on? Why did he stop? I didn't hear Tucker say anything. Why did Danny have to gag me too? If I could just talk to him!**

**Oww… my head… Dad! That ghost is going to kill him! I've got to do something!**

**His eyes keep changing color, like he's unsure of something. Danny, why did things turn out this way?**

Vlad's voice was there too, taunting me. _"Can't kill him little badger? You're too weak to do anything to profit yourself. The man in front of you has no right to live. You've killed so many already, what is one more?"_

And under them, buried inside my mind, was my old self, insisting that I let go of Tucker and leave them alone, because they had been happy.

Now Tucker was staring at me. His feet were on the floor now. My grip must have loosened. "Danny-" Then his eyes widened. "Darius, stop!"

Suddenly a tearing pain began at the top of my head. I was being ripped in two. The ghost catcher- Darius was splitting me in half. My nerves screamed in agony as they were cut and duplicated, and it was over in what felt like an eternity of pain. I stepped back, clutching my head. From what I could tell I was still me. But then I caught sight of my hand. It was white. I looked down. I was in my old costume, the DP symbol and everything.

A gasp rang loudly in my ears, and I looked up to see the other half of me. He was in the red and black costume. And his hand was around Darius' throat. I stepped forward, but the other me held up a hand.

"I'm going to kill the thorn in our side. Are you going to help, or am I going to have to take out you as well?" He looked up at me, his red eyes burning into mine. "Your eyes show your indecision. Take your time and think about it." He grinned. "I'd rather not hurt myself."

We both had our powers still, so how had we been split? I closed my eyes for a moment, concentrating, and a scattered stream of thoughts came through. My power wasn't as strong. **The boy has to die- the hallucinations are staring at me- I can't take it anymore- he has to die- and Tucker too- stop Vlad! Stop glaring at me! I'll kill them all if it makes you stop!**

My eyes snapped open, but the only people in the room were all alive still. That was it! That was how I was split! My other half was everything I was after the accident, ruled by his insanity. And I was myself before the accident, still sane. Except I knew and remembered everything that had happened to me. It was like a second chance. If I knew I was going to end up like this twelve years ago, would I have killed Tucker back then too?

My eyes flicked over to him, standing next to the broken ghost catcher. We had been through everything together, and I had ignored him and Sam so often that they easily could have given up on me, but they never did. So was I going to follow my planned path and kill my friend and his son? Or was I going to be a hero again like Jazz always thought I could be?

And then I could see the hallucinations my other self was being tormented with. Their rotting forms blocking from my vision as they crowded around him. I had killed all of those people. Did I really think I would be able to stop now?

The corpses were beginning to notice my presence, turning to face me too. So I wasn't sane, like I had thought. Just eighteen again. With less powers. But I had made up my mind. I walked towards them slowly, and they formed a wall between Darius and me, knowing my intentions. My brain was screaming at me to stop, but I stepped forward, through their insubstantial bodies.

Then I came to Darius and the other me. He was twitching, but he visibly relaxed when I stepped from the wall of illusions. A hand grabbed my wrist, but I ignored it, and then the pressure of the grip was gone. "I was wondering when you'd decide." He said, his voice barely hiding his panic.

"No. I refuse to let you kill anyone. We've done enough damage already."

He dropped Darius to the ground and stood up straighter. Great, he was taller than me. So I have fewer powers, and I'm shorter and weaker. This split really didn't help me at all. "Can't you see them? The corpses? They're everywhere! Vlad's holding your arm right now! I've got to kill Darius and Tucker, or they'll never go away!"

I could feel the hand again, maggots wiggling between its' fingers, the pressure tightening as if to acknowledge its' presence. Somehow I managed not to shudder. "Remember what Jazz said. They're hallucinations. Just imaginary."

"She was one of them. She wanted us to weaken ourselves so that the more nasty ones could get at us." His eyes were full of pain, and I took a step towards him, but he backed up. Then his red eyes began to burn with hatred. "I can't trust you anyways. You're being forced to be good. Because of the ghost catcher."

I stopped. "No. I'm just seeing what I was like when we were whole. And I don't like it at all."

Now there was fire in his glare. "You're just a coward. I have to fight the hallucinations. You can't even see them. I'm tired of fighting things that don't feel pain. I'd rather kill the people responsible for making me this way. If I've got to fight you first, I will." Then he dived towards me.

I dropped to the ground and tried to blast him as he went over me. But he knew I was going to do that and turned intangible before landing behind me. I stood up just in time to avoid a punch, and sent a blast at him. He dodged it. Then he sent a red ectobeam back. I turned intangible, but it still burned as it went through my arm.

Now he began shooting those blasts at me, forcing me to twist and block as many as I could. I fired my own back, green being the only color I could achieve, but he didn't get hit by any of mine either. So I spun and kicked his legs out from under him, but instead of falling on the ground he floated in the air and tried to grab my foot. I phased out of his grip and he teleported behind me.

This wasn't working. We knew each other's moves. I dodged another blast, spun around, and backed up a couple of steps to get out of the range of his fists. Suddenly his face turned pale. "Come out!" he yelled. "Stop hiding!"

I blinked and looked around. I could see him clearly. Then I saw the faint outlines of others standing around me. He was still seeing the bodies. I was invisible to him. Now was my chance. I sent a blast at him, and it hit its' mark, knocking the older me backwards. He turned and fired directly at me. I dodged and fell back into the circle where he could see me, firing another blast as I went. He wasn't prepared for me to appear, and was struck by this one too. This forced him into the wall of his tormenters, and he was shoved onto the ground by his own imagination.

Before he could get up I jumped back out of his sight, and fired more blasts. He began to become panicked, and fired more blasts than I could dodge. Suddenly he stopped, as if realizing something. I froze, worried, and he spoke. "If you want me to kill this family, you've got to let me get at my other half." My breath caught in my throat as I watched the hallucinations vanish, leaving nothing between him and me. He grinned wickedly.

I set up a shield just as the ground beneath me exploded, leaving a hole in the floor. Now he was next to me, and he sliced through my shield with a glowing red blade. I flew past him and landed on the floor again, and he threw the blade my way. A frightened struggling noise made me realize Sam was still stuck to the wall directly behind me. So dodging was not an option. Instead I grabbed the blade with my hands, feeling it slice into my skin.

Blood ran down the glowing edge, and I flipped the sword around so that I was holding the handle. But my other half waved his hands, and it vanished. He began throwing red blasts again, and I had to let everyone hit me or it would hit Sam. I slowly moved away from her and then phased into the floor. He expected me to come up from under him. Instead I flew invisibly back up and dropped on him from above, then froze his arms and legs so he couldn't move.

Usually there would be something to say. Some big speech before the villain died. I held up my hand and created a white beam. I had nothing to say to myself. It was too late for both of us. My hand sped down and smashed on his head, and he died instantly. His ghost form vanished, leaving his half of our human side, a twisted and evil look on its' face. That too withered away and vanished, and I dropped to the ground.

I was weaker now. My whole body felt insubstantial. I got to my feet and looked down at my hands in shock. They were fading away. Not just turning invisible, I actually lost the feeling in my fingers as they faded out and then back in. Just like my other half. I was dying. I couldn't live with half of me gone.

I looked up at the family I had almost destroyed. Tucker and Darius were standing next to each other, their expressions unreadable. Apart from them, Sam was finally free from her bonds. I began to walk towards her, and her eyes registered not fear, but amazement. I took her hands in mine. For a moment she was _my_ Sam, teenage Sam, her dark hair shorter, her face younger. I leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek.

"I'll always love you Sam. Thanks for waiting." I turned to face Tucker. "Both of you. I'm sorry things ended up this way." I couldn't keep my form together any longer, and felt myself vanish from my feet up. The last thing I saw was my eyes, reflected in Sam's.

They were finally green again.

* * *

**_And now we come to the end of the line. Almost. There are two epilogues for the reader to pick! One, you'll have to read to find out what it is. The other, is a twisted ending. You can read both, if you'd like, and I assume you all will. They will come out at the same time, a few days after this, because they're both written._**


	20. Epilogue 1: The New Existence

**_This epilogue is my favorite of the two. It's longer, for one thing. Enjoy!_**

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_"If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story."_

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I'm still not sure about what a ghost is. A lost soul, a cursed spirit, someone with unfinished business? Maybe all three. Why did some ghosts look like humans, and others monsters? Why did some feel emotions, act kind, while others had only hatred for the world they had left?

I like to think that it was my choice to stay behind. That I wanted to. That I wanted to live on the human world instead of pass on to where my parents and sister were waiting. But there were other possibilities too. I could be paying for my crimes. I could be undeserving of seeing my family again. And then there's the less religious way. That since I was half ghost anyway I was going to become a ghost the moment I stepped out of the newly activated portal.

See why I like the first idea?

My powers were under control now. I never used the destructive ones. And I could read minds when I felt like it, instead of all of the time. Shadow had stayed away, probably rejoined with Johnny or another up and coming evil ghost. I didn't mind. I had no desire for company, and no desire for destruction. Not anymore. Besides, the hallucinations had ended the moment my other half was killed.

That was another ghost property that I hadn't figured out. Emotions. I wasn't completely void of them. I cared for the lives of others. I would fight for the innocent for all time. But I no longer felt any hatred towards anyone. It was impossible. I couldn't feel jealousy or betrayal, and I could only become angry after someone got hurt. Fitting that the emotions I had told Darius that I still had during our fight at the bridge were gone.

Including my love for Sam.

I'm not sure when I realized that I didn't love her the same way I had before. I still saw her as the woman I had chased, still saw the reason's I had loved her, but I couldn't love her anymore. For both of our sakes. She was happy with her family, and I would never take her happiness away. She wasn't my Sam, the Sam I had kissed the night I had died, she was Tucker's Sam. I never showed myself to her. But I protected her family from harm.

"Are you ready yet?" the girl said, bringing me back to reality. I turned silently and repositioned myself on the branch to get a better view. "I'm ready for my story now." Her voice carried to me easily through the open window. I was sitting on the tree outside, unseen of course.

Sam entered the room and smiled. "Alright I'm coming." She sat down in a chair and said, "A story about Danny, I assume?"

"Of course!"

"Wait for me!" Tucker said, entering the room and walking over to sit beside Sam. He kissed her lightly on the cheek. "You can't tell the story without the other witness!"

"You don't even know which story I'm going to tell." Sam said, trying to stop her smile.

"Then I'll pick! How about the time Sally was kidnapped by a dragon ghost who wanted to marry her!"

"Ew! He wanted to marry Sally? She's married to Trent though!"

Sam made a face. "Sally wasn't too happy about it either."

I watched them as they told the Aragon story, remembering it right along with them. Their audience of one reacted perfectly, laughing at Sam ruining the pre-wedding ceremony, cheering for Tucker and I going to rescue Sam, and gasping when the prince was beating me. At the end she applauded, and yawned. Sam and Tuck stood up.

"Goodnight kiddo." Tucker said. "We'll see you in the morning."

"Goodnight Grandma and Grandpa. I like when you come to visit. You tell the best stories." The girl said, smiling. Sam and Tucker left the room, turning off the light. The girl waited a few moments, and then crept over to the window. Her eyes glowed green, a power she had gained from her father, and she stared right at me. A grin spread across her face. "Goodnight, Phantom. Thanks for watching out for us."

I smiled and watched as she closed the window, waving to me once more before going back to her bed. I stood on the branch and jumped into the sky to watch the city of Amity Park like I did every night, and would do for many more.


	21. Epilogue 2: Twisted Reality

**_Here's the twisted epilogue. Short, but I think it's good. I hope you like it!_**

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_There is nothing like a dream to create the future._

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I sat up in bed, covered in cold sweat. Someone was sitting next to me, and gasped in surprise at my reaction. "Danny, are you alright?"

"Mom!" I yelled in surprise. "You're alive!" I looked down and saw that I was in my old bed, in my old room. "What's going on?"

"You've got school today, and you've got to get up." She said, looking at me strangely.

"School? Mom, how long have I been asleep?"

"Well, considering the fact that you went to bed around four in the morning, and it's now seven, three hours. Sweetie, are you alright?"

It was all a dream. Just a horrible dream! "What day is today?"

"September fifth, the first day of school. And no, you're not getting out of it."

The first day of school! I was finally going to ask Sam to be my girlfriend today!

"Are you okay Danny? Did you have a bad dream or something?"

I opened my mouth to speak, but for some strange reason I couldn't remember the dream. Oh well, it probably wasn't important then. Besides, I had to get to school and find Sam; I didn't have time to talk to my mom about nightmares. "No, I guess not. I've got to get to school."

"You should try and sneak out the backdoor then. Your father's lurking around somewhere. He wants to show you our new invention, the Specter Sleeper. It-"

But I was already out the door and gone. Today would be the first day of the rest of my life.


End file.
